The politicians of today's U.S. Senate could stand to learn a thing or two from Everett Dirksen and Mike Mansfield.
That's a central argument author Marc C. Johnson makes in his new book, Mansfield and Dirksen: Bipartisan Giants of the Senate.
Johnson, a former broadcast journalist and aide to former Gov. Cecil Andrus, D-Idaho, said the relationship between Mansfield, a Democrat from Montana; and Dirksen, a Republican from Illinois, was unique in modern American politics.
"Totally different personalities, from very different states from very different parts of the country, very different political ideologies," Johnson said. "But still, somehow during the very tumultuous time of the 1960s, they managed to work together on a vast array of things that have continued to shape American politics and civic life. So quite an extraordinary partnership."
The Senate leaders were pivotal in the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the creation of Medicare, and building a consensus for ratification of the limited nuclear test ban treaty.
That's not to say it always worked. Johnson is a critic of how the Senate operated when it came to shaping policy around the Vietnam War.
"If there was one great failure of their leadership, their bipartisan leadership in the '60s, it was that they didn't really find a way to cooperate and get on the same page when it came to that very tragic war," said Johnson.
Johnson notes there's fewer incentives for senators to assemble a bipartisan coalition in today's hyper-partisan political environment. But he argues that makes working across the aisle more important, not less.
"The Senate is a quirky, some would say antiquated institution, but it is what it is. And it's written into the Constitution, for the Senate to work, bipartisanship has to assert itself as it did in the Mansfield-Dirksen era," he said.
Of course, the Senate of Dirksen and Mansfield's day was different. Conservative southern Democrats had a lot of sway in their party in the 1960s, and liberal northeastern Republicans also wielded influence within their ranks.
"So, the parties were much more diverse, which made the requirement for bipartisanship even stronger," Johnson said.
Today, Johnson said the parties are homogenized to the point that the most liberal Republican is still more conservative than the most right-leaning Democrat.
Increased polarization leads to frequent shifts in the balance of power of the Senate. Johnson said leadership is usually more concerned about who's going to control the upper chamber after the next election cycle, rather than working together and making real headway on major issues like the national debt, immigration, and climate change.
"The intense interest in and motivation on the part of individual senators to exert their partisanship is really, really pronounced right now, much to the detriment of trying to deal with some of these issues that are really important to the country and to most people in the country," he said.
When asked if there's a better path forward, Johnson said he's skeptical it'll happen until better leaders come into power.
"Mansfield and Dirksen were extraordinary personalities, but also extraordinary political leaders, who had a real defined way of approaching their job and approaching the job of the Senate," he said. "And without that kind of fidelity to the institution and to the country above their own partisan interest, it's pretty hard to think that we're going to have a better path forward anytime soon."
Mansfield and Dirksen: Bipartisan Giants of the Senate was published by the University of Oklahoma Press this month. Johnson will visit Bradley University in Peoria on Oct. 11 at the invitation of the Dirksen Congressional Center in Pekin, Dirksen's hometown.
