That’s the latest finding to come out of The Lugar Center’s Bipartisan Index, which ranks all members of the House and Senate on the degree of their bipartisan efforts in Congress.
With such stark disagreements between parties that are aggravated by a primary system that favors extreme views, it is not difficult to imagine why Congress experiences so much gridlock. But even as public opinion seems to shift further from the political center, our representatives can and must work together.
The crippling partisanship in Congress these days is often said to reflect the unprecedented polarization among Congressional districts, the result of both gerrymandering and the clustering of Democrats and Republicans in different geographical areas.
But we found that many House members who live in deeply partisan districts have worked with members of the other party to introduce and co-sponsor bipartisan legislation. To do this, we took The Lugar Center’s Bipartisan Index, produced together with Georgetown’s McCourt School of Public Policy, and combined that with data from the Cook Political Report’s Partisan Voter Index (which is widely viewed as an established standard in analyzing the ‘partisanship’ of each district).
TLC’s Bipartisan Index measures the frequency with which representatives introduce or co-sponsor legislation in conjunction with members of the opposite party. Scores above 0.00 indicate a more bipartisan performance than the 20-year average score of a member in similar circumstances. Those who score above zero are deemed “Bipartisan Legislators.” In 2015, 137 Representatives, or about 30 percent, received positive bipartisan scores.
The 2014 Partisan Voter Index, created by Cook Political Report, determines its scores based on the results of the 2012 presidential election. Higher scores indicate stronger party affiliations, and therefore more partisan polarization. A district holding a score of R+6 or above is deemed “Strongly Republican,” while a score of D+6 or above indicates that a district is “Strongly Democratic.” In all, we found that 72 representatives with positive Bipartisan Index scores represent either “Strongly Democratic” or “Strongly Republican” districts of their same political party, accounting for more than half of all “Bipartisan Legislators” in the 114th Congress.
This data is promising. While it is true that more partisan districts tend to yield more partisan representatives, this is by no means a foregone conclusion. For example, Democrat David Scott represents Georgia’s 13th district, a group of Atlanta suburbs that voted for Obama 69.2% to Romney’s 30% in the 2012 presidential election, for a D+16 score. Nevertheless, in 2015, Scott had the 12th highest score on the Bipartisan Index among all House members. Similarly, Republican David McKinley from West Virginia was elected by a district that voted for Romney 62.2% to 35.5% in 2012 (R+14). Yet he ranked 22nd on the Bipartisan Index among all 435 House members.
At a time where divisive politics and polarizing rhetoric predominate, American democracy needs leaders who are willing to compromise. Seventy-two members of the House have provided evidence that consensus building can happen even in the most fractious of environments.
“Bipartisanship is not the same thing as centrism,” said former Sen. Dick Lugar (R, Ind.), president of The Lugar Center. “These results show that members with strong Democratic or Republican constituencies can still work across the aisle. More members, and more voters, need to understand that the role of a legislator is not to score partisan political points, but to govern.”
Jamie Spitz serves as a research associate at The Lugar Center.