Does Rep. Eric Cantor’s loss mean that compromise is dead?

Cooperation is bad for reelection.

On June 10, Rep. Eric Cantor of Virginia, the House Majority Leader (the second-highest ranking Republican in the House of Representatives) lost the Republican primary in his district. He lost to David Brat, an Economics professor, who ran an impressive campaign. I had never heard of him, so I decided to look at his website. In one section, titled “ Reforming Washington”, it lists the usual reasons for ousting an incumbent representative—they’ve lost touch with their constituents, they’ve become part of the problem, etc. etc.

Image from David Brat's campaign website.

But then he goes for the jugular—“Cantor’s ‘leadership’ has been characterized by capitulation to the Obama agenda”. The top of the page features a picture of President Obama and Rep. Cantor talking, surrounded by people, presumably after a State of the Union or other Capitol event. At what point did talking to the President of the United States, let alone allowing yourself to be photographed doing so, become equal to a betrayal of the worst kind? Seriously? Heaven forbid coworkers should exchange a few words after a long day. Don’t we want our congressmen and women talking to each other? Being friendly? Getting things done? I certainly do.

In the Cantor/Brat campaign “amnesty” for illegal immigrants became the dirty word. David Brat claimed that Cantor was the biggest Republican supporter of amnesty. This assertion was a reaction to an interview Cantor gave where he said: “I have told the president, there are some things we can work on together…We can work on the border security bill together, we can work on something like the kids. So far, the president has just insisted that it’s all or nothing — my way or the highway. That’s not going to happen.”

Fundamentally, Cantor rejected most of President Obama’s plans for immigration reform. In terms of policy, Cantor stayed within the conservative camp. Instead of attacking Cantor’s policies, Brat was actually villainizing Cantor’s willingness to even consider cooperating with Democrats on immigration. That was Cantor’s “weakness”. Unfortunately, Brat isn’t alone in using this campaign tactic. Republican challengers across the country, for example, have accused incumbents of being “RINO”s or “Republicans in Name Only”, implying that these politicians have abandoned conservative ideals and started working with Democrats.

What is with this compromise-shaming tactic during election campaigns? It needs to stop. Our whole system of government is built on compromise. The Constitution itself reinforces the need for coalitions and cooperation. Our founding fathers were terrified of factions controlling the government. In the Federalist Essay No. 10, James Madison defines a faction thus: “By a faction, I understand a number of citizens, whether amounting to a majority or a minority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adversed to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community.” In short, a faction is a group with strong opinions that are adverse to (or opposite) the views and rights of the rest of the population. James Madison argued that factions contribute to distrust in public institutions and are a danger to personal liberty.

Madison goes on to argue that there are only two ways to control factions: either remove their causes or control their effects. Removing the causes of factions would be impossible because we can neither deny freedom of thought or opinion nor force citizens to share the same ideas. We are left with only one solution—controlling the effects of factions in government through checks and balances.

The whole reason checks and balances exist between branches of the federal government, and even within the branches themselves, is to prevent one faction from controlling the whole process of legislation. If any big piece of legislation passes, it has to be a result of cooperation between political parties. The Constitution requires Congress to have a majority to pass legislation. Often, even if a party has a majority in House of Representatives, it probably won’t have a majority in the Senate. Each law passed by both houses of Congress then needs to be signed by the President. If one party monopolizes both houses of Congress, a different party may occupy the White House. If an unconstitutional law happens to get through both the legislative and executive branches, the Supreme Court can strike it down. Our Constitution is quite effective at forcing collaboration—and cooperation is necessary in order for the government to work well.

There is a glaring double standard here. As voters, we get mad when a party single-handedly rams legislation through the system without the other party’s support—but then we get mad when our members of Congress compromise with the other party to get things done, as if compromise were a betrayal of principles. Where is the balance? We need our legislators to be friendly with each other. We need them to work together and get things done. Please stop shaming members of Congress every time they dare talk to the person sitting next to them—even if they are from the other political party.