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We have known each other for more than 35 years; we were first elected to Congress at the same time. We are certainly not poster boys for consensus: It’s an impossible goal in a nation of more than 300 million people with diverse backgrounds, and we differ on a number of important issues.
But we respect the sincerity each of us brings to the political process. As a result, we were able to accept the hard reality that because neither of us would get everything we wanted on every issue, it was often necessary to compromise in order to keep America’s government, the original “government of the people,” working.
Conservative philosopher Michael Novak once observed that our political institutions are designed to “clang against each other.” As he put it, “The noise is democracy at work.” We should welcome the lively contest between alternative directions and policies. But when the alternatives have been considered and their merits weighed, it is time to find the ground on which we can all stand together.
We direct bipartisan political programs at the Aspen Institute. We have made a commitment to each other that we would devote much of our time and energy to helping Americans regain the ability to engage with one another in civil tones and temperate language.
We want to disabuse our colleagues in the political world of the idea that compromise is betrayal and intransigence is a virtue. Working together, we helped organize a series of lunchtime dialogues to consider how we could find avenues to break down the walls that keep Americans of divergent views from listening to one another.
We are divided on many issues, but we are one people, one nation, and we will not – we cannot – meet the burden of our citizenship unless we are willing to do it together, as neighbors, able to debate our varying viewpoints with mutual regard.
The signers of the Declaration of Independence, themselves representing different regions and interests, pledged to one another their lives, fortunes and sacred honor. While they did not always agree when it came to creating this new world of theirs, they stood together. We should do no less.
The stakes are high for us, as they were for the founders: America’s role as an economic, political and moral leader is dependent on our working together to meet our constitutional responsibilities.
