In March of 1981, President Ronald Reagan was shot and critically wounded. Before being wheeled into surgery, Reagan, known for his good-natured quips, famously said to his doctors, “Please tell me you’re Republicans.’'
Dr. Joseph Martin Giordano, the director of George Washington University Hospital’s trauma unit, replied, ‘‘Mr. President, right now, everybody is a Republican.’’
But Giordano was a registered Democrat, and he and his team saved Reagan’s life. Giordano was one of the best in his field, and throughout his presidency, Reagan never doubted the goodwill of most Americans of any party.
But this spirit is under assault today. Nowhere can this be seen more clearly than in a recent tempest-in-a-teapot regarding three Republican attorneys general — Dave Yost of Ohio, Alan Wilson of South Carolina and Lynn Fitch of Mississippi — who are taking public flak for hiring law firms that predominately donate to Democrats for litigation related to the opioid crisis and other complex cases.
To be sure, there is a difference between life-saving medical treatment and patronizing law firms which are involved in the political process. But they share underlying issues in common.
The fiercest criticism comes from a group called the Alliance for Consumers, an organization which seems focused on electing Republican attorneys general.
O. H. Skinner, the group’s executive director, deems the practice of hiring Democratic connected law firms “unsophisticated,” and his sentiments are echoed by Mississippi auditor Shad White, a Republican who sees the differences as “generational,” the “old guard,” who wants to keep the status quo, vs. the young turks who want to “ruffle some feathers.”
But the conversation raises the question: ruffle feathers, for what purpose?
White and the Alliance for Consumers suggest that partisanship alone is the most important consideration that requires feathers be ruffled. That’s a downright dangerous point of view.
Yost, the Ohio AG, didn’t mince words when it came to defending his record: “A blanket refusal to use a qualified firm based solely on perceived political leanings wouldn’t just be bad government, it would be bad legal strategy. We seek out firms and lawyers with the competency to win cases, not ones who check ideological boxes.”
His position is the right one. Indeed, there’s a certain irony about a group called the Alliance for Consumers arguing, in essence, that the amount of money won in a lawsuit involving the opioid crisis —over $700 million in South Carolina alone — is less important than partisan loyalties. The entire point of such litigation is for the benefit of consumers who have been hurt by practices that federal courts deemed harmful.
The past decade has seen extreme partisan swings, from Democrat to Republican and back again. Widespread disenchantment with both parties cannot rationally be said to be a result of too little partisanship. While it is always difficult to judge the complex positions of more than 150 million American voters, the more likely scenario is that a failure of our political leaders to accomplish much of anything lasting is at the core of voter dissatisfaction. Prioritizing donations to your favored political party cannot but lead to worse public policy over time.
Something much more fundamental is lost if we allow partisanship of this sort to take center stage. The rules of a free society are, by necessity, relatively fewer and less restrictive. And as such, a certain amount of good faith is required when we seek to operate in the best interests of the public. While it is unrealistic to assume partisanship will play no role, forcing party loyalty to center stage, at all times, destroys the trust required for a large, pluralistic society to function well.
The consequences are more than a simple loss of collegiality, as important as that is. Such behavior also leads to the belief that we’ll be treated unfairly when the “other side” takes power.
The late Sen. Henry M. “Scoop” Jackson (D-WA), famous for treating his Republican colleagues fairly, once said, “Although I am a Democrat, and will work hard for the Democratic victory in November, I respect my Republican friends and their views — and wish them well 364 days a year. On election day, it’s a little harder.” That’s a much better vision as to how partisanship should work.
Am I making too much out of a simple dispute over what law firms a few state attorneys general contract with? That’s certainly possible. In the wide range of things to be outraged about, this dispute is relatively minor.
But too many of the problems in our current political climate have occurred because too few people raise alarm when small things are doing violence to larger, more fundamental and important truths.
Back to Ronald Reagan: He famously, and repeatedly, asked then Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill, a Democrat, if it was 6 p.m. yet.
He meant that, while they might be foes during the work day, they could be friends after work. In truth, O’Neill didn’t think a lot of Reagan, as he made clear in his memoirs, but the men still kept things collegial. Even if this principle is not always, or even usually, upheld, it should be something to aim for. If Republicans and Democrats don’t view each other as Americans first, our nation, and both parties, will pay the price in the long term.