Two-handed bipartisanship — the remedy for political tribalism

President Biden has an opportunity to break the partisan fever gripping America after decades of rising temperatures. We offer a simple proposal to make the dream of more civil discourse a reality, starting from the basic observation that the ends and means are identical: We need bipartisanship to achieve bipartisanship. Imagine if Biden announces that all legislation reaching his desk must have co-sponsors from both parties. Five senators from each side is a good number. We call it the “Two Hand” rule. 

Consider how we got here. Partisan tribalism has been increasing at an alarming rate over 30 years. A case can be made against every president’s partisan moves, but partisan voting patterns in Congress have been well-documented since the Cold War ended. Perhaps lack of a common external threat unleashed internal differences. Whatever the cause, the 1990s were more partisan than what preceded them. The country united briefly after 9/11. But soon a backlash was triggered. “Bush lied, people died” became the mantra for many who opposed the war as accusations of war criminality deepened political fissures.  

President Obama disappointed centrists hoping for unity. His approach to the economy and health care were framed and legislated as zero-sum partisan battles, without input from or compromise with Republicans. New laws were passed along straight party-line votes, despite deep blue Massachusetts electing a Republican senator who campaigned against it to succeed Democrat Ted Kennedy. Under Obama, culture wars ravaged the country in new and aggressive ways as white, working-class Americans were scorned as “bitter” and clinging “to guns or religion.”  

The nation’s descent into tribalism continued under Donald Trump, who in his first days as president seemed open to working with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.). Democrats refused to recognize Trump’s legitimacy, while he in turn embraced his pugilistic, no-apology instincts. Senators and representatives of both parties stopped reaching across the aisle, and too many journalists openly abandoned any pretense of objective reporting.  

2020 and early 2021 have tested our national psyche as it has not been tested in decades. Governors blamed Trump for the COVID-19 pandemic even as their states suffered from self-inflicted disasters and lockdowns. Rioting throughout the summer was sanctioned by progressives, and on Jan. 6 right-wing extremists adopted the same confrontational violence in the guise of protest.  

Although actual political violence is rare, the troubling reality is support for it has risen dramatically in all quarters. Opinion polls show support for political violence growing in recent years, from single digits to over 30 percent among Democrats and Republicans. Biden can end this nonsense, with action, and be the first chief executive this century to stop adding fuel to the fire.  

Throughout the 2020 campaign, Biden tried to thread the political needle, portraying himself as a moderate while appealing to extreme leftist elements. This duality cannot continue. There will be tremendous pressure on Biden to take the path paved with identity politics and woke hostility. Alternatively, he can take steps to unify a divided country. He can lead from the center, bring us together, lower the partisan fever and let the country heal. There is no set of policies for this alternative path, but there are principles. Guardrails, as he likes to say. 

The place to start healing is to restore the bipartisan ideal of legislation. First, Biden should eschew taking the law into his own hands, limiting the use of executive orders that Obama and Trump both abused. Second, establish the Two Hand Rule principle for congressional legislation. 

Bills are born in the House and Senate by a “sponsor” who introduces a bill for consideration. Other lawmakers show their support by adding their names as co-sponsors, either originally or at any later time as additional co-sponsors. An unlimited number of co-sponsors are allowed, though in recent decades most legislation is sponsored only by members of one party.  

Why not demand that all legislation during the next administration have bipartisan sponsorship? Why not insist that there be five Republican and five Democratic cosponsors? Such a bold stroke would reassure the public that the Biden era would be, in spirit as well as substance, centrist in a way recent predecessors only talked about. 

One day there will be a time to pursue purely partisan agendas, but that time will belong to a different president. President Biden should instead go down in history as the leader who broke our national fever and enabled America to heal.  

Tim Kane is the J.P. Conte Fellow in Immigration Studies at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. He a veteran U.S. Air Force officer and author of “The Immigrant Superpower” (Oxford University Press, forthcoming 2021). Elad Yoran is a leader in the cybersecurity industry and an adjunct professor at Columbia University. He is a veteran U.S. Army officer and author of “What Does It Mean To Be An American?” (2019).