Shaken by Harvey, Congress May Try Something New: Bipartisanship
Congress is looking at bipartisanship after Hurricane Harvey devastated South Texas and Louisiana. President Trump has put the border wall on the back burner and turned his attention to paying for the damage the hurricane brought. But Harvey isn't the only thing that has brought bipartisanship out in Congress. Republican Representative Mike Coffman is trying to force a vote on protecting immigrants. Senators Lamar Alexander, a Republican, and Patty Murray, a Democrat, are working on supporting failing health insurance markets, leading a group of governors of both parties to support them. Not all governors are getting along; Ted Cruz, the governor of Texas didn’t agree with the aid package for Hurricane Sandy, but need help now that his state has been hit by Harvey. Congress does have a lot of other decisions to make, they need to pay for defense authorization bill, Children’s Health Insurance Program, and find the time to make tax cuts. Bipartisanship methods are being taken, a rare occurrence, but Republicans and Democrats still need to find the middle ground on many issues.
The article was written by Sheryl Stolberg for the New York Times on September 3, 2017. This was a week ago, and things in Congress may have changed a little bit, but this was before Hurricane Irma had made landfall in Florida, so things may have changed after the destruction that Irma brought. I knew that Congress was trying some bipartisanship, but I did not know how much was taking place, and the article talked Congress up about all of the Republicans and Democrats working together so much. The article’s main purpose was to highlight the bipartisanship, and it did achieve that. It is important for both parties to work together when the United States experiences disaster, like after 9/11, when things for the country are going well, like in 1969 when the United States put the first man on the moon, and when people need to be protected, the Americans with Disabilities Act which got passed in 1990. The point of having two parties is so that we can have two differing views on how to get stuff done in government, but when disaster strikes, our legislature should be able to put differences aside and help the people of America.
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