By: Kevin Trainor/Managing Editor.
Twelve-term former Congressman Jim Moran pulls no punches. The son of an early NFL player, James Moran, Sr, of the then Boston Redskins, the future Virginia Democrat grew up in a rock-ribbed “New Deal” household. “Congress today is leadership centric. They won’t permit working across the aisle. It’s discouraged.” He goes on to say that a handful of leaders, and their staffs, dictate the process. The old horses are gone. The give and take, the nuts and bolts to achieve compromise, and the skills to do it are a lost art. The 1986 Tax Bill, landmark legislation, was hammered out at The Irish Times with members, some staff, from both parties working out the agreement in cramped booths over Guinness and Harp. Then there’s the Alpine Room. “It’s in Arlington, on Lee Highway, it just closed down.” Partly because it no longer served the purpose as a venue for bi-partisan meeting up says the former representative of Virginia’s 8th District. “It used to be a place where Tip O’Neill, Sil Conte, and Bob Michel, they would gather, there’s a nice back room, it had great Italian food and they had a certain amount of privacy.” Moran says it was crucial. “There wasn’t any scrutiny of press lingering by the door, and they enjoyed each other’s company. It put some personality, some normalcy, to what otherwise can be a very frustrating, dispiriting process. We’ve lost that.” Today, he says you would never find Nancy Pelosi, or Paul Ryan sitting down talking one on one.
What happened? “The pivot point I think,” says Moran, “is when Newt Gingrich came in. He nationalized congressional elections. He asserted more power for the speakership. He really terminated the ways that we really got to know each other across the aisle.” The former congressman says it has served the Republicans well. “It’s easier to raise money when things are not nuanced, they’re black and white, and you can claim we’re good, and they’re bad, and that happens on both sides, so there are fewer gray areas, and those are the areas where compromise was achieved.”
Money, media, and gerrymandering has perverted the political process. Gerrymandering is a 19th century term for when the party in power in any particular state carves up congressional districts to ensure those congressional seats stay in a party’s reach. Mel Watt came to mind. A classic case of selective districting. Elected in 1992 the newly elected African-American North Carolinian came from a mostly African-American district that included a population cluster in Charlotte, and another like district in Greensboro. The link? I-85. Literally. He was the congressman for the interstate spanning about 95 miles between the two cities. Either side of the highway was another district. In the South, if you are a Democrat you are essentially black, a Republican you are white for the most part. “You packed African-Americans in a congressional district, and they achieved what they wanted. They marginalized the Democratic Party. The surrounding members didn’t need to listen to the black community. They could easily afford to listen to the far more conservative white community.”
With such safe seats down the party line a new reality has formed. A Democrat need not fear a Republican challenger, but rather a primary challenger within the same party, and the same for a Republican. If you’re a Democrat, and vote adversely to the labor interests, they will run a candidate against you. A Republican won’t court moderate voters because they’ll be seen as abandoning the aim of the Right. Portrayed as weak, ineffectual. Says Moran of this reality, “no matter the party you’re in you are going to take more extreme positions. That’s why for the first time in history, and we’ve had it for a few years, where the most conservative Democrat is more liberal than the most liberal Republican. That never used to be the case.”
As far as money is concerned? “There are people who have gotten involved in politics who couldn’t care less about how well a member serves the interest of their district. What they care about is votes on the industries where they make their money, want them deregulated, and the taxes that they pay. So as long as you’re voting the way they want you to vote they’ll come in, and if you need it they’ll put in enough money so you can bury an opponent.” Essentially what has become the reality in Congress today is that if you want to vote your conscience you will have a competitive primary, and spend most of your elected time raising cash.
Regarding media we like to have our political beliefs affirmed. We can read a leftish/rightish paper, listen to talk radio according to what we approve, and watch political shows on the cable nets where we see the person who we agree with take down the person we disagree with. “We are sorting ourselves out in this country, even geographically. It is a fascinating dynamic that is taking place. We are getting tribal, now you’re more inclined to move to neighborhoods where people think the same way you do.” The former congressman says the greatest areas of economic interest are the greatest areas of social moderation. Namely the coasts, and natural and man-made junctions. Those who are left behind in less opportunity rich areas are re-active rather than pro-active. Here, he says, are the bulk of the Trump voters, as well as Tea Party stalwarts.
Do members of Congress feel handcuffed, bound by outside forces to vote a certain way? The former congressman certainly has an opinion on this topic. “I have many friends in the Congress, and I hate to say this, but there are very few who have the courage to rise above that. They understand it, they want to do the right thing for themselves, and the people who expect more of them, but it’s very difficult to be a maverick, an outsider.” Under the current party leadership stranglehold that behavior will be punished. You may not get a committee assignment you’re qualified, or will serve your district well. You will be marginalized. “We have acquired a kind of political cancer that has metastasized, and it’s killing us in terms of our potential, our future, very destructive, and I think some of it was bound to happen. I think a lot of it was pure ambition on the part of some of the people…it was manipulation. Certainly with Newt it was.”
We asked, Jim Moran if he was optimistic, or pessimistic, regarding our political climate. He feels good about the millennial generation, but, “Overall, I’m terribly pessimistic. My generation, the baby-boom generation, has turned out to be the most selfish in American history. We have cut taxes to the point of incurring trillions of dollars in indebtedness mostly attributable to entitlement programs that are far more beneficial than we deserve, or can afford.” He adds, “We are perfectly comfortable bankrupting our country so we can get our medicare, social security, and disability benefits, and short-changing the education, the human, and infrastructure needs of the next generation, and generations to come. We have screwed our grandchildren so we can live a more comfortable life, and it’s grossly immoral.”
Mr. Moran is currently with the law firm McDermmott, Will, and Emery in Washington, D.C. as a Senior Legislative Advisor. He is a professor of practice at Virginia Tech’s School of Public and International Affairs.
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