WASHINGTON — On successive days last week, the House of Representatives passed by strong bipartisan majorities a pair of bills with the potential to strengthen fundamental pillars of American society. Did anyone notice?
The news media perspective on Congress is one of unending conflict — "Crossfire" -type exchanges 24-7. When measures to overhaul the election system in the wake of last year’s Florida fiasco and to infuse both money and accountability into chronically lagging public schools were approved overwhelmingly by the House, the applause from press and public was not exactly deafening.
But these were signal achievements, not just in themselves but as symbols of the way in which legislative craftsmanship and largeness of spirit can achieve progress, even under difficult political circumstances.
President Bush deserves credit for pressing Congress persistently to pass the school reform program he put at the top of his agenda. He was passive, if not indifferent, on the election reform issue.
Neither the education nor the election bill could have overcome serious roadblocks in the House had not four men — two Republicans and two Democrats — decided to defy the ideologues in their own parties and form centrist coalitions to get the job done.
Two Ohio Republicans, John Boehner and Bob Ney, had to confront the strong conservatives who insisted that the federal government had no business even suggesting to state and local officials how to run their schools or manage their elections.
On the Democratic side, George Miller of California and Steny Hoyer of Maryland were condemned by some liberal members for failing to insist on direct 1960s-model federal controls.
Ney and Hoyer teamed up to write and pass the Help America Vote Act by 362-63. The measure will provide funds to eliminate the punch-card voting systems that caused such havoc in Florida and will set minimum standards for conduct of future elections. States will have to give a clear definition of a valid vote (no more chad debates), improve their registration procedures, allow provisional ballots by people claiming to be eligible, permit voters to correct errors while still in the polling place and provide better access for the disabled.
The opposition came from the most conservative and most liberal members of the House, voting together in uneasy coalition. The day after the overwhelming House vote, senators of both parties announced hard-won agreement on a companion measure, meaning that improvements in the voting process likely will be under way by the time of the next presidential election.
Ney and Hoyer had few problems working together; both are centrists and products of legislatures where they learned the value of compromise.
For Boehner and Miller, it was much more of a reach. The Ohioan is a conservative who, just a few years ago, tried to abolish the Department of Education. Miller, a staunch liberal, told me, "Every time I saw him get up on the House floor, I threw rocks at him."
But with Bush playing the honest broker, convincing Miller personally that he really wanted to focus federal funds on poor kids and poorly performing schools, Boehner gambled he could ask Miller for help on the education bill. He knew he would need Democrats, because so many of his fellow Republicans were still where he had been: dead-set against any federal intervention in the schools. Boehner himself had come to believe that "the federal government could not withdraw from education, but we had to find a way to be sure we were getting results."
The bill they passed seeks to do that by annual testing of students in grades three through eight (a Bush requirement, based on his successful experience in monitoring Texas schools), and sets realistic but challenging standards for measuring year-to-year progress. With Congress adding a big chunk of money to the Bush budget, it also provides the wherewithal for special reading programs, tutoring and after-school and summer assistance to failing students.
The combination of new resources, increased flexibility for local school authorities and more insistence that educators produce results is a revolution in federal policy.
It passed the House 381-41, with most of the opposition coming, as Boehner expected, from conservative Republicans, and will become law this week.
As Rep. Tim Roemer, an Indiana Democrat who is retiring next year after playing a vital role on the school bill, said, "This is why I came to Washington 10 years ago. I just wish we had done our work this way more often. Think what we could have accomplished."
It might happen more often if the people who pull off these legislative miracles receive the praise they are due.
David Broder can be reached at The Washington Post Writers Group, 1150 15th St. NW, Washington, DC 20071-9200.
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