In the wake of the Tucson shootings, Third Way, the Democratic centrist group, has offered what it calls three "small suggestions" toward increasing the civility of political discourse:
- Mixed (bipartisan) seating at the State of the Union address, to avoid the spectacle of one side jumping up to applaud and the other sitting glumly (this suggestion was embraced on Thursday by Senator Mark Udall [D-CO]).
- A bipartisan retreat for each house of Congress.
- Regular visits to the district/state of a member of a different party.
These suggestions are "small" in so far as they are eminently do-able and won't cost much but they are ingenious in their design. In fact, each, in a different way, seeks to expand the network of Congress members across party lines, which will naturally have the effect of reducing free-floating animosity. It's hard (or at least harder) to caricature someone you've broken bread with.
In fact, the Third Way proposals are backed up by some interesting history and research that shows how social bonds affect legislative behavior. In the early years of the Republic, Capitol Hill was ringed with boarding houses -- "congressional messes" -- where members of Congress bunked two to a room and took their meals together at a long table. It was within the messes that close friendships were formed, while interaction with those from other messes was "polite, but cold and general." Not surprisingly, messes tended to vote together as blocs.
But if the messes show how social bonds can affect legislative work, they also show why members might need some prodding to expand their social circle. In choosing their boarding house, members strongly clustered themselves by geographic region -- at a time when geography heavily dictated point of view. While the messes promoted fellowship, it was mostly of the birds-of-a feather variety.
Which brings us to the proposal to intermix the parties during the State of the Union address. Third Way says this will "avoid the spectacle of one side jumping up to applaud and the other sitting glumly." OK, but why stop there? Why not have mixed seating whenever either chamber of Congress meets? At a time when both sides are calling for more bipartisanship, the results could be just what everyone is looking for.
Seth Masket, a political scientist at the University of Denver, published a paper a couple of years ago that looked at more than three decades of roll call votes in the California Assembly. The California Assembly is a particularly interesting place to study legislative behavior because its members sit in pairs -- and sometimes with a member of another party. Masket was curious as to whether or not these desk pairings affected voting behavior. He found that deskmates did have an increased likelihood of voting similarly on bills -- and, surprisingly, that the "proximity effect" was higher on contested votes.
Scrambling the congressional seating chart -- and not just for the State of the Union -- is unlikely to create cross-party collaboration overnight, but it may well nudge things in that direction.