Washington, Kentucky lawmakers try to bridge political divides in 2024

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WASHINGTON – In Tacoma, Washington, residents came together for an interfaith solidarity event after a series of attacks rocked faith institutions, including an Islamic center targeted by an arson attack and a Buddhist nun being assaulted.

Rep. Derek Kilmer, D-Wash., whose district encompasses most of Tacoma, was in attendance at the 2021 event. After the gathering, which he called “powerful,” a faith leader approached him and asked if there was any federal support to hold more community events.

“Not really, not at least that I know of,” Kilmer responded.

Then, the lawmaker went to a local YMCA for another meeting in his district. He expected to hear from community leaders about gymnasiums losing money during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Instead, he was told that fights began breaking out in the YMCA over politics. Shirts, hats or even the cable news channel someone turned on while using an elliptical would instigate conflicts, he recalled. In response, the YMCA location hired a consultant to train staff on conflict resolution. Kilmer was again asked if there was any federal support to help try to bridge gaps in an increasingly polarized political environment.

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Again, “Not really,” Kilmer thought.

The Democratic lawmaker looked into the subject and found the U.S. does spend some money to foster social cohesion and bridge building, just overseas through the National Endowment for Democracy. It’s an organization aimed at supporting democracy in other countries.

But while the government funds those efforts abroad, it doesn’t make major investments to do the same domestically.

That spurred Kilmer, along with Rep. Andy Barr, R-Ky., to introduce bipartisan legislation called the “Building Civic Bridges Act” in 2022. It would have funded efforts in local communities, including supporting programs aimed at bridging gaps and training facilitators. The bill never made it to the House floor, but the pair recently reintroduced the legislation last month – in the heat of an election year.

“There’s just an exhaustion with the division and a strong appetite to say ‘Let’s do something about it,” Kilmer told USA TODAY.

‘Start dealing with these divisions’

Kilmer came together with Barr to work on the bill, as both of them co-chair the Congressional Bipartisan Working Group, a caucus made up of roughly a dozen of both Democratic and Republican House lawmakers.

Barr gives Kilmer “a lot of the credit here because he imagined the idea.” The Kentucky Republican often works with the Henry Clay center in his district, a nonprofit organization aimed at fostering compromise and dialogue among students, so he was immediately interested in collaborating with Kilmer.

The hope, Barr told USA TODAY, is “to start dealing with these divisions and start getting Americans of different political flavors to start talking to one another again so that we can forge compromises and solve big problems.”

“Our political dialogue has become very toxic, and people do not disagree in a civil way anymore,” Barr said. “It’s not that we’re trying to eliminate disagreement. We’re trying to figure out ways in which people can be agreeable in the way they disagree.”

What would this push actually do?

The bill would launch a pilot program led by a new “Office of Civic Bridgebuilding” in Americorps, an independent agency focused on volunteering. Funding would flow to local organizations and spaces working to reduce polarization in their communities.

Money for example, could support efforts from the YMCA Kilmer visited. The location began “bridging events” to bring locals together “to talk across their differences rather than have our YMCA turn into ‘The Jerry Springer Show,’” the lawmaker said. The legislation could also give funding to nonprofits, schools, religious groups and other institutions that apply for government grants to experiment in their community.

The legislation has an eclectic mix of support from outside organizations, from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to the Association of American Universities, among others.

But getting people to speak about their political differences isn’t easy, and fiscal hawks could call Kilmer, Barr and other supporters naive for spending taxpayer dollars on their push. In the wake of the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol, and former President Donald Trump’s false claims of election fraud, Kilmer knows there can be simple disagreements over “just basic differences of what the facts are.”

Still, Kilmer pointed to a now disbanded select committee he chaired that sought to modernize Congress and make it more efficient. It was evenly divided between six Democrats and six Republicans, and unlike most committees, it needed two-thirds support to pass anything.

After the Jan. 6 attack, members told Kilmer “I don’t even want to get in a room with these folks.” The committee later brought in a mediator to have the members “talk through it.”

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