Partisan paralysis in Congress is poisoning the other branches of government and quashing the voice of everyday Americans, Democratic Rep. Steny Hoyer said Monday in a speech that argued secret donors, voter restrictions and craftily drawn House districts have cast a dark cloud over Washington.
With four months to go until Election Day, the House minority whip urged voters to back candidates who value compromise on Capitol Hill, saying members who retreat into ideological corners are holding the nation back.
“Too many of our people believe that the American dream is slipping away — not good for them, not good for us, not good for our country,” Mr. Hoyer, Maryland Democrat, said in a speech at the Georgetown University Law Center in D.C.
House Republicans recently unveiled an election-year agenda, dubbed “A Better Way,” that de-emphasizes federal control by lowering tax rates, axing health care mandates and cutting bureaucratic red tape.
By contrast, Mr. Hoyer argued the federal government needs to do more, not less, so that it can play “a positive, not a negative, role” in Americans’ lives.
He blasted Senate Republicans for ignoring President Obama’s nominee to replace late Justice Antonin Scalia on the Supreme Court, although GOP leaders say they want American voters to have a say in the next pick.
On the House side, Mr. Hoyer argued too many GOP members serve in politically safe districts, giving them a free hand to buck their own leaders and hold up bipartisan measures.
“We need Republicans who care deeply about making government work to join us in breaking that cycle,” he said.
He said both parties have gerrymandered to their benefit, though, so there should be a nationwide standard for how congressional districts are drawn, because red states won’t change if blue states don’t, too.
“We need a national solution that applies the same rules to everyone,” he said. “This system isn’t going to end unless both parties work to end it together.”
He also blasted the Supreme Court’s decision to strike parts of the Voting Rights Act requiring states, mainly in the South, to pre-clear changes to their election laws, saying it cleared the way for GOP-led states to enact laws that make it harder to vote.
Instead, Mr. Hoyer said he wants to expand opportunities to vote early or by mail.
He also praised Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont for prizing small donations in his upstart campaign against presumptive Democratic Hillary Clinton, saying it set the right tone after the Supreme Court, in its 2010 decision in “Citizens United,” opened the door to “opaque” donations from deep-pocketed interests.
“President Obama, and to a larger degree Senator Sanders, showed us the power millions of small donors can have when they band together,” Mr. Hoyer said.
• Tom Howell Jr. can be reached at thowell@washingtontimes.com.
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