During his noble but often futile pursuit of bipartisan lawmaking, Rep. Josh Gottheimer, a Democrat, was occasionally pulled aside by a party elder and asked the kind of question that most House freshmen would find daunting: "Why are you helping the other side?" the colleague would sneer. "What benefit can come out of this?"
The co-founder of the Problem Solvers Caucus, which is composed of 24 members from each party, would explain that it's more about practicality than politics: Nothing can be accomplished without collaboration, and as long as a bill is good for New Jersey's 5th District and the country, his own party is an afterthought.
How did they usually respond to this mantra?
"I'm not getting any flowers," Gottheimer says in full deadpan.
If Congress takes a credible step toward restoring democracy next session, someone should send Gottheimer a bouquet, because it probably will be the result of him helping Nancy Pelosi take a strategic step away from the massive prairie fire that is the legislative process.
Endlessly frustrated by the partisanship and obstructionism that torpedoes most meaningful legislation, Gottheimer leveraged the votes for speaker from his caucus to convince Pelosi that the rules of the House must change in the upcoming session to make it a more open and inclusive process.
He calls the initiative Break The Gridlock, quixotic as that may sound.
Among its eight provisions is the creation of a "consensus calendar," which allows for bills with 290 co-sponsors to automatically be sent to the floor after a certain time lapse. Why? Because if a bill has two-thirds support in the House, it should not be jammed by a committee chairman or by party leadership.
That's the big one, because there are "too many issues that have massive support off the floor among membership and the public," Gottheimer says, "but the obstructionists won't let it get to the floor."
He means issues such as infrastructure, gun safety, immigration reform, climate change, protecting entitlements, lowering health care premiums, education costs, and minimum wage -- all that frivolous stuff that isn't being debated now, which is why so many Americans want to trash the place.
Another provision guarantees a debate and a vote for all amendments with at least 20 cosponsors from each party, while another modernizes the discharge petition process, which is easily smothered under existing rules.
The new rules also make it more difficult to oust the Speaker: No longer can a single hardliner use the "vacate the chair" motion as a cudgel to keep certain pieces of legislation off the floor by calling for a new House speaker. That was used so often by Tea Partiers, it chased John Boehner into retirement. That threshold has been raised, so the speaker can now take legislative risks.
All these proposals won the support of Pelosi and the next chairman of the Rules Committee, Jim McGovern (D-Mass.).
The Democratic majority will still have a clear advantage. But a House consensus - and minority access - gives a bill a better chance of getting past the Republican Senate and getting the president to sign it.
Yes, Gottheimer knows he has a bull's-eye on his back. Some say he shouldn't be so eager to give Republicans such a soft landing after they were routed in the midterms. Even Democratic newbies such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tweeted that Gottheimer is "hold(ing) the entire 220+ caucus hostage if we don't accept their GOP-friendly rules."
No flowers from trolls, either.
"I don't get that," Gottheimer says. "We can't meet in two years and still have Dreamers living with the same uncertainty. We can't leave Gateway unfunded. If we insist on all or nothing, then nothing will pass the president's desk. We can't use the next two years to obstruct."
True, that's a bad way to govern. And judging by the midterms, voters want Congress to put the nation's interests ahead of any party's agenda. How refreshing.
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