Being bipartisan in a partisan world 

Like many other non-governmental organizations working to improve our democracy, the Levin Center for Oversight and Democracy strives to be — and promotes its work as being — bipartisan. We ground our trainings, conferences, teaching, legal arguments and scholarship in the values we think are fundamental to a successful democracy: a commitment to facts and civil discourse, respect for and a willingness to listen to another point of view, adherence to long-accepted rules of fair play and reciprocity, and the use of public office for the benefit of the American people. 

Bipartisanship works best when our political ecosystem has at least two parties engaged in a healthy dialogue operating within norms that reflect our shared values. With some notable exceptions, our parties and other institutions have operated within those norms for much of the nation’s history. But that is no longer the case, and organizations that are committed to bipartisanship often find ourselves tongue-tied. We spend our days promoting democracy, good government and bipartisanship, yet we are reluctant to single out the actions of those who threaten these values because we do not want to be perceived as partisan. 

Much of journalism is in a similar bind. Seeking to be “fair,” journalists struggle to draw equivalencies between the behavior of actors across the political spectrum, even though our politics has lost the partisan symmetry that once defined widespread adherence to norms. From any reasonable perspective, the two parties are no longer similar when it comes to valuing fundamental democratic norms. 

We need not look very far to find examples of political behavior that betray a complete disregard for the norms that have held our democracy together. Undermining the results of a free and fair vote in the wake of the 2020 election is front and center. Condemning bipartisan cooperation in the House of Representatives is another. There is also the misuse of Congress’ investigative powers. Congressional oversight should be used to uncover the facts and reveal those facts, as appropriate, to the American people. It should not be used to injure a political rival, disrupt a criminal prosecution or present the American people with misinformation. Such behavior is more than just counterproductive in terms of effective government — it threatens the very underpinnings of our institutions.

Organizations like ours feel compelled to speak out against the defiance of those norms because it jeopardizes not only the functioning of our nation but our entire democratic system of government and U.S. leadership in the world. We oppose attacks on truthfulness, reciprocity and compromise, not because we favor one party over another, but because our country becomes ungovernable and our democratic republic impossible without them. 

As our founder and namesake, the late Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) said, “If you don’t come to Congress willing to compromise, then you don’t come to Congress to govern.” Sen. Levin counted Republicans like the late Sens. John McCain (Ariz.) and Tom Coburn (Okla.) among his closest friends and collaborators, and it is likely that together they would have condemned the mounting attacks on bipartisanship because, despite their party loyalty, they were committed to a functioning two-party system built on compromise. 

Certainly, Sen. Levin would urge us to oppose, for example, behavior that prevented the House of Representatives from electing a Speaker and addressing grave threats to global security and democracy. He would urge us to condemn congressional hearings held to spread baseless conspiracy theories or attack political opponents. And he would invite his colleagues on both sides of the aisle to embrace anew the values that make bipartisanship and our democracy sustainable. 

Jim Townsend is director of the Carl Levin Center for Oversight and Democracy at Wayne State University Law School and served previously as a congressional staff member and as a Democratic member of the Michigan House of Representatives. Dave Trott serves on the Levin Center’s Advisory Board and was a Republican member of Congress from 2015 to 2019.