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Bipartisanship is a Process

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Look, I don’t really care if a bill is bipartisan or not. If a bill is a good idea, then the party makeup of that bill’s sponsors don’t matter as much as the number of legislators supporting it. Of course, in the state Senate with GOP control, the measures I support will probably need some bipartisan support to pass. And in the state House, I suspect most bills I like will be improved by being more partisan and getting GOP support would water them down. But whatever, the process is the process. And for people who are less partisan than me, bipartisanship is important.

If you want bipartisanship qua bipartisanship, there are ways you can reach out to the other side without compromising your values. Let’s see how whoever is in charge of the House GOP Twitter feed tried to show they are bipartisan.

“Democrat co-sponsors”? It wouldn’t have cost them anything to write “Democratic” and show they were actually committed to a process that respects both sides. I mean honestly, it’s not that big of a deal, but they could try to make their tweets a bit less self-refuting.

Also, I tried to find some context and was only somewhat successful. If I’m reading this right it looks like there have been 1229 bills introduced in both houses. If you assume half of them are in the House of Representatives, that’s most bills in the House aren’t bipartisan. I don’t know. It’s 7:30 on Friday, and this is exactly how much research I’m willing to do before I go out.

Comments

  2. 2

    @1, This tweet is just the House, so none. But to your point more generally I wouldn’t be terribly surprised if there are only a few Democrats who are the majority of those sponsors.

  3. 3

    Where you really need bipartisanship is in the committees where most bills go to die. It’s frankly amazing the number of bills that actually pass each session. Yet at some point everything gets shoved aside to do the sausage…oh the budget, not likely to be bipartisan.

  4. 4

    Democrats need to stop whining about grammar. Democrat as an adjective is an acceptable variant of Democratic.

    The Seattle Seahawks. Not the Seattlite Seahawks.
    The Washington Department of Transportation. Not the Washingtonian Department of Transportation.

  5. 5

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D.....epithet%29

    Democrat Party (epithet)
    From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
    “Democrat Party” is a political epithet used in the United States for the Democratic Party. The term has been used in negative or hostile fashion by conservative commentators and members of the Republican Party in party platforms, partisan speeches and press releases since 1940.[1]

    Multiple reasons are suggested for the use of the term. A 1984 New York Times article suggested Republicans began to use the term when Democrats used their own party name to imply “they are the only true adherents of democracy.”[2] Republicans “feared that ‘Democratic’ suggested Democrats [had] a monopoly on or are somehow the anointed custodians of the concept of democracy.”[3] New Yorker commentator Hendrik Hertzberg wrote, “There’s no great mystery about the motives behind this deliberate misnaming. ‘Democrat Party’ is a slur, or intended to be—a handy way to express contempt. Aesthetic judgments are subjective, of course, but ‘Democrat Party’ is jarring verging on ugly. It fairly screams ‘rat.'”[4] Political analyst Charlie Cook attributed modern use of the term to force of habit rather than a deliberate epithet by Republicans.[5] Ruth Marcus stated that Republicans likely only continue to employ the term because Democrats dislike it.[6] Marcus stated that disagreements over use of the term are “trivial”,[6] and Hertzberg calls use of the term “a minor irritation” and also “the partisan equivalent of flashing a gang sign.”[4]

    http://www.newyorker.com/magaz.....-ic-factor

    Comment AUGUST 7, 2006 ISSUE

    THE “IC” FACTOR
    Hendrik Hertzberg on what the President calls his opposition party.

    BY HENDRIK HERTZBERG

    What is the name of a certain political party in the United States—not the one which controls the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of the federal government but the other one, which doesn’t? The question is a small one, to be sure: a minor irritation, a wee gnat compared to such red-clawed, sharp-toothed horrors as the health-care mess and the budget deficit, to say nothing of Iraq and Lebanon. But it has been around longer than any of them, and, annoyingly, it won’t go away.

    —snip—

    There’s no great mystery about the motives behind this deliberate misnaming. “Democrat Party” is a slur, or intended to be—a handy way to express contempt. Aesthetic judgments are subjective, of course, but “Democrat Party” is jarring verging on ugly. It fairly screams “rat.” At a slightly higher level of sophistication, it’s an attempt to deny the enemy the positive connotations of its chosen appellation. During the Cold War, many people bridled at obvious misnomers like “German Democratic Republic,” and perhaps there are some members of the Republican Party (which, come to think of it, has been drifting toward monarchism of late) who genuinely regard the Democratic Party as undemocratic. Perhaps there are some who hope to induce it to go out of existence by refusing to call it by its name, à la terming Israel “the Zionist entity.” And no doubt there are plenty of others who say “Democrat Party” just to needle the other side while signalling solidarity with their own—the partisan equivalent of flashing a gang sign.

    http://americablog.com/2013/05.....party.html

    Why the GOP uses the epithet “Democrat Party”
    5/22/13 12:47pm by Jon Green

    The ardent wing-nuttery of E.W. Jackson, the Virginia GOP’s nominee for lieutenant governor, has already been well-documented. (Jackson thinks Obama’s a Muslim, Democrats are worse than the KKK, and gays are pedophiles.)

    What hasn’t been talked about has been E.W. Jackson’s insistence on using a racist, Lee Atwater-era dog whistle to refer to his political opponents.

    In the video below, you’ll note that Jackson refuses to use the term “Democratic Party,” instead opting for the harsher “Democrat Party.”

    —snip—

    The term “Democrat Party” was coined for precisely for the linguistic reasons outlined above: the “Democratic Party” is just another political organization, while the “Democrat Party” is a bunch of rats and similar less-than-human life forms. And who does the racist wing of the GOP consider less-than-human? The 47%, who they universally think of as unemployed, un-American, on welfare, and black. Which makes it especially ironic that Jackson is using the term.

    Here’s the deal…childish fucking morons like @4 here think that they can tar an entire group of American citizens whose political beliefs oppose theirs by associating the political party name with vermin.

    It is no more complicated or simpler than that. It is Lee Atwater era political branding and mostly used by jerks and assholes like @4 here because it irritates their political opposition.

    Of course to anyone other than shitheads like @4 here…the use of the epithet immediately brand the user as a garden variety know nothing, misogynistic, homophobic, free-loading tea-party dummy who most likely gets his political and social education from Fox News and Rush Limbaugh. The cretin @4 has on more than one occasion proved his bona fides as a member of the aforementioned demographic.

    So @4 should now know that the use of ‘Democrat’ as an adjective meant to be a pejorative epithet (which it is certainly meant to be in any context used by @4 or his ilk) is absolutely not an acceptable variant of Democratic.

  6. 6

    @5 The best way to get even is by calling Republicans by their right names: Rethugs, Repugs, Pukes, Fascists, etc. That makes it even. And remember, they started it, but we’re going to finish it. No peace while there’s one stinking Rethug left! No compromise with Fascists! We will oppose them until they’re raptured from Planet Earth never to return.

  7. 7

    If anyone wants to begin referring to the GOP as the Republic Party, feel free.

    It would really sting, but we’ll deal with it.

  8. 8

    @ 6

    We will oppose them until they’re raptured from Planet Earth never to return.

    Um, wouldn’t that mean they were right about all that Bible shit? (I plan to burn in Hell with y’all. Move over, Rujax.)

  10. 10

    @8 “I plan to burn in Hell with y’all.”

    Take a blowup doll with you so you don’t get lonely. Eternity is a long time.

  13. 13

    @5.
    am a Democrat, on the left side. nothing you posted established that grammatically it’s not an acceptable variant. Nothing you quoted or said showed that we use nouns as adjectives often, as I indicated. so you spent a lonnnnnnnnng time whinnnnnning about grammar.

    Think harder. Every moment we spend on this fight is a moment we are not building a message or working for social justice. You can say finance capital, or financial capital. It’s just not a big deal. You’re like the little boy on the playground who gets taunted and takes something that could be shrugged off and is so crybaby reactive YOU EMPOWER THEM in the taunting. grow up. stop whining about grammar. get the fuck over it. also this:

    you are not going to change what the gopsters say ever, are you?

    so what points do you hope to achieve by whining?

    do you think that’s a good message, “put us in charge, we’re the easily hurt party”?

    “we whine about name calling”?

    I know what they intend. What I said was grammatically, it’s not even that clearly wrong, it’s a variant, so you’reon weak ground as well as whiny ground. this is like going tothe democratic party meetings. they end up bitching and moaning about the amdnements to the bylaws for two hours and can’t run a meeting that lets folks, regular folks get home by 9 pm — so normal folks are turned off. they have sometimes no ability to focus on what’s important. this. is. fucking. trivial.at.best. so. stop. whining. you. big ba by.

    it makes D’s look bad. And I can tell you there are millions and millions of people who say it NOT intending a slur — not everyone talks like a college grad or correctly. so seriously stop empowering the gop. shrug it off and quit the whining.

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