Speaker Johnson,
As you are well aware, your immediate predecessors—Republicans serving as speakers of the House—had rough goes in the job. Held over a barrel by the extremists in your party, they were loath to work across the aisle for fear of letting the extremists in my party get the better of any legislative deal.
Without a doubt, the Democratic and Republican parties have different and disparate interests, and rarely see eye-to-eye. But in regards to the current impasse on Capitol Hill, you and reasonable members of the Republican conference have more in common with pragmatic members of the Democratic caucus than you do the extremists who are mobilizing to get you fired.
As you plot the way forward, I want to point out a truth few have acknowledged: You’d not only position the U.S. to lead the world in energy, manufacturing, and climate change if you were to champion a grand legislative bargain. By damning the consequences, you’d paint yourself a hero, a patriot, as well and a unique political leader in this country at this very difficult time.
The short of it here is that the issues of greatest contention today—Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan, liquified natural gas, and permitting reform—are ripe for a grand bargain that could elicit support from Democrats and Republicans who would rather champion progress for the country than fuel outrage on social media—mature patriots who understand that they’re not going to get everything they want. But to get there, you will need to signal that you’re going to welcome the Democrats into the fold even while under threat from the likes of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and her ilk.
Please don’t let her absurdity ruin your speakership. Seize this opportunity.
Ricky Carioti/The Washington Post via Getty Images
The political landscape here is complex, but it’s entirely navigable if you endeavor to take a bipartisan approach. As you know, many Democrats, and some Republicans, are very eager to provide aid to Ukraine, even if that proposition faces opposition on the conservative extreme. Meanwhile, many Republicans, and most Democrats, are eager to provide additional aid to Israel for use in its fight against Hamas and other enemies, despite deep-set opposition on the far Left. The solution here is to embrace America’s place as a world leader and beacon for global peace and security by providing robust support for both allies, and weaving support for Taiwan (subject to potential aggression from China) in the same package. Members who are dubious of any one element, but supportive of the other, will support the combined package.
I suspect the elements alone would be enough to draw support for a bipartisan package. But you could burnish your credibility as a champion of commonsense legislating by weaving in two additional elements both having to do with climate, jobs, and American leadership. First, you should insert in a provision reversing the White House’s ban on liquified natural gas exports. Framed as an attempt to curtail the globe’s addiction to carbon-emitting fossil fuels, the impacts are set to be more profound. Cut off from Russian exports, America’s natural gas supply is a backstop for countries that fear a shortage of fuel in the months and years to come.
We need to make sure gas fracked in the U.S. can quickly get to the places where demand is unmet—and those places are, by and large, largely democratic countries being held hostage by a brutal dictator.
It would be one thing if new sources of wind, solar, and geothermal power could be combined with energy efficiency to replace fossil fuel-generated energy in the short term. But the reality is that energy demand, particularly in the U.S., is slated to go up just as we are re-shoring various energy-intensive industries (including “fabs” for semiconductors) and become more engaged in artificial intelligence. (An AI search demands 10 times as much energy as a traditional search.) Natural gas is not the end solution—but it’s a crucial aspect to of a carbon-neutral future. When my home state of Ohio switched from coal to natural gas, our carbon emissions fell by half. We should be working on a bipartisan basis to grow the natural gas industry, not clip its wings.
And that points to the final element of what could be a grand bipartisan bargain: permitting reform. Many Democrats and Republicans want to make it possible to move natural gas around the country more expeditiously, both to make energy more affordable and to build a bridge to carbon neutrality. Most members of my party—and many of yours—want to do something similar for transmission lines, if only so that clean energy generated in sun- and wind-soak portions of the country can be transferred to the places where that energy can be consumed. But both pipelines and transmission lines are near next to impossible to build in the U.S. because permitting processes are so convoluted.
Congress could fix this with expedited approvals. Be the Speaker who modernized America’s energy system.
Few members of Congress will support all of these items individually. Most will object to at least one. But taken together and written with an eye toward eliciting support from both parties, passage is not only possible but probable.
Incumbents facing re-election want to be able to campaign this summer in their districts with accomplishments proving that they were more a part of the solution than the problem. And to those who will face opposition from constituents opposed to any individual element of this grand compromise, the other elements will justify support for the package as a whole.
This package is completely defensible in most Congressional districts in the U.S.
Without a doubt, you will catch some political flak for taking this approach from the extremists on the fringe of your party. Former President Trump may not like it much either. But the reality is this: The only way for you to be able to elicit their support over the long run is to be an implacable impediment to progress.
I can’t imagine you ran for speaker in order to do the bidding of those who simply want to engage in political firefights. You are bound to lose if you throw your lot in with them—and you’ll have absolutely nothing to show for your speakership if you do. But if you point the way to a bipartisan grand bargain, you may be forced out of your job, but you’ll have proven yourself the kind of leader American’s are craving.
This is, in the end, the crux of the bargain: Craft a bipartisan way forward, or stand as a bulwark for the extremes.
Either way, you are liable to lose your job, but in one approach you may actually do something positive for the country. Combining support for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan with LNG exports and permitting reform would mark the type of grand compromise that generations of legislators will remember as America’s system of government at its best.
As you are now experiencing first-hand, your erstwhile allies on your party’s fringe have no real interest in your success—but most legislators in both parties really do want the country to thrive. This is your opportunity to redeem our constitutional system, and to establish yourself as a statesman and modern day profile in courage.
Tim Ryan is President of We The People Action Fund” and “Senior Advisor, Progressive Policy Institute’s Campaign for Working Americans.
The views expressed in this article are the writer’s own.
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.