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Can Republicans and Democrats in Congress learn to work together in 2020?

Cooperation has been hard to come by in recent years, but one committee is looking to change that, writes Chris Stevenson

Monday 30 December 2019 01:01 GMT
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Bipartisanship has been hard to foster in Congress during Donald Trump's tenure in the White House
Bipartisanship has been hard to foster in Congress during Donald Trump's tenure in the White House

Whether you are talking about the UK parliament or the US Congress, I think everyone would agree that cooperation is not high on the agenda.

In Washington, bipartisanship between the Democrats and the Republicans has been slowly eroding for a while. The election of Donald Trump helped quicken the pace, and the battle lines drawn over the impeachment of the president have added more fuel to the fire. There have been acts of compromise between the two parties, but they have been few and far between.

That’s probably why you’re not likely to have heard much about the Select Committee on the Modernisation of Congress, whose mission, since it was set up in January, has increasingly become finding ways to boost civility and cooperation in the legislative branch. While the committee also seeks to find ways for Congress to work better for the American people – mostly by saving taxpayers’ money – it is the civility part of the mandate that has taken up a lot of the time.

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