Shields calls "The Partisan Divide" the book to read

Mark Shields; political commentator and moderator of a panel on the book, "The Partisan Divide," by Martin Frost, Tom Davis and Richard Cohen; told a Jan. 13 National Press Club audience that “if you are going to read one book this year … this is the one” you should pick up.

Democrat Frost represented the Dallas-Fort Worth district of Texas in the House from 1979 to 2005 and Republican David represented a Northern Virginia district from 1995 to 2008. Cohen was a longtime Washington congressional correspondent and columnist.

David Eisenhower, author and grandson of former President Dwight Eisenhower, who introduced the event, said the book offers a look at ways not to do away with differences, but rather to express differences “in energizing and inspiring ways.” Along the way, the authors “provide a reminder that politics is fun.”

Davis said we have a “parliamentary system” now, with voters voting by party. “It’s almost routine that legislation is filibustered,” he said.

Frost explained that the difficulty with the "parliamentary system" is that legislators are all elected in the party system at home, then when they get to Washington, and everyone else was elected the same way, there is no incentive to compromise. “The system is rigged against coalition,” he said.

Frost noted that when he was first elected in 1978, there was no cable news or Internet, but once those media came into general use “people started getting much more polarized information.”

Davis said “November doesn’t matter, it’s all about the primary.” Cohen said there were “patterns (in elections) in the 1980s that simply are not acceptable today.”

What could change things for the better? Davis said to “bring back earmarks” to designate where money goes (“everything is omnibus now”); and “have more bipartisan get-togethers for Congress members.”

Frost said to require bipartisan committees; and have full hearings in committees with votes on the floor – a “messy and time-consuming” process, but legislators “need that accountability.”

Cohen said “return real legislative authority to committees”; and “reporters need to be more assertive – go back to the days of conveying to readers what is actually going on, not just a blow-by-blow accounting” of proceedings. “Reporters know more than they are writing about,” he said, often restricted in coverage direction by their editors.