Bridging the Divide

In today’s Financial Times, former Senator Heidi Heitkamp (D, ND) says that “an effective [virus] containment strategy and [economic] recovery plan requires votes from both sides of the political divide.”¹  She is absolutely right on that,  However, she is wrong in how to get such a plan.  She says “[w]hat we need is a series of open meetings” with “[a]ll stakeholders invited” and everything “should be transparent.”

While that sounds good, it won’t work.  As we have seen so often in Washington, public hearings mean public posturing.  Senators, representatives, etc., focus on sound bites and what they can put on Twitter and Facebook, pandering to their base, instead of trying to actually reach an agreement.

While it is nice to talk, paraphrasing Woodrow Wilson, about “open agreements, openly arrived at”, the only way we are going to get the kind of agreement across the political divide that Senator. Heitkamp says we need is through confidential negotiations between people not looking to win some social media battle.  Open agreements, secretly agreed to, is the way to get there.
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¹ Heidi Heitkamp, “Healing the rift starts with bridging the Senate aisle,” Financial Times, November 6, 2020.