One of the annual traditions in Washington is the Congressional retreat. Republicans and Democrats alike gather at a resort to make plans for the coming year, discuss strategies and generally rally the base.
Certainly I understand the need for such gatherings and obviously they are going to continue into the future. But given the dysfunctional nature of Washington today I think it might be time to consider the concept of a bipartisan summit.
Certainly not everyone in Congress would wish to participate but I think it still could be a valuable tool for breaking down the hostility between the parties. It is much more difficult to be hostile towards a person once you’ve gotten to know them.
Obviously we would need to work on the logistics of how people will be chosen to participate but I think that would be very workable. Those who wish to participate would file their names with the organizers (some sort of bipartisan group) and then through random selection people would be teamed or grouped together.
The role of course would be that you would be matched with a member of the opposite party, or several members would be grouped together in order to make things work. There would be no restriction on who was matched with who says so it would be possible for a freshman member to be matched with a veteran, us top Sen. matched with a new house member, etc.
In order to make things workable it would probably be necessary to limit the number of participants so you might need to have several summits.
I think one of the key rules of the summit would be that the discussion of politics should be very limited and instead people should be encouraged to simply get to know each other.
It might even be useful to include family members, children for example often are not limited bipartisanship and when your children become friends with someone else’s children that can bring you together.
It might also be useful to involve charitable organizations such as Habitat for Humanity or Fisher House to give the members something to work on together (again even if you disagree with a person’s politics you may share a desire to help and contribute).
Certainly I don’t expect this idea to magically cure all of the partisan gridlock in Washington, indeed I don’t think it will probably ever come to be. But if someone reading this happens to know someone in a Congressional office it might be nice to suggest this idea.
After all if it only means that a few members become a little less partisan and little more respectful of each other it certainly worth trying.
And of course if anyone out there has suggestions on how to make this idea better I’d welcome the comments.