Though Reps. Emilia Sykes (D-Ohio) and Mike Carey (R-Ohio) may cast opposing votes on the House floor, they do agree on at least one thing: popularity pays these days, for better or worse.
And while the most extreme members of their party may get much of the national attention, both were optimistic that individual lawmakers could help create a more cooperative environment in Washington.
Aside from being friends and colleagues, Sykes and Carey came together for a conversation Tuesday as part of StoryCorps’s One Small Step initiative. The purpose is to answer one question: “What happens when two people with opposing political views sit down for a conversation about their lives, not politics?”
The Hill partnered with StoryCorps to host Tuesday’s event.
From the start of the conversation, both representatives emphasized the importance of conversing across party lines.
“So many times, [people] see the extremes of our party, and those are the ones that really get the airtime,” Carey said. “It’s important to have these discussions, so everybody can understand that it’s not all fighting.”
Sykes agreed that lawmakers often get along much better than is portrayed in the news.
However, she noted that partisanship is alive and well and asked Carey why he thinks some of his colleagues refuse to work with Democrats.
“The truth is, I don’t know,” Carey said. “A lot of it is just that they don’t necessarily work with the other side back in their districts.”
“If you look at Franklin County, Columbus, Ohio, where I live, there are three of us that are Republican that I’m counting. It’s me, the county engineer and Michelle Reynolds is a newly elected state senator,” Carey added. “And so we have to work with the Democrats.”
While some states are primarily Democrat or Republican, Sykes calls Ohio a “purple” state in that oftentimes, Republicans like Carey will represent a district that has primarily Democratic local governments or vice versa.
In that case, they have to work across the aisle, whereas legislators in districts dominated by their own political party don’t, a practice Carey said they replicate in Congress.
“When you don’t have to communicate with someone who doesn’t think differently, then it’s easier to stay in your own circle,” Sykes said. “It’s much more difficult to go up to someone and say, ‘OK, you are very different from me, but let’s find a way to work together. It’s a skill, it’s a talent, it requires some compassion, and it’s hard. If you don’t have to, some people just decide not to.”
Because of this, Sykes said she made a point to get to know her colleagues beyond their television personas. In doing so, she said she is able to humanize both herself and her colleagues.
“It’s far more difficult to get on TV and say inflammatory things about someone who you’ve had in your office and maybe shared a cup of coffee with,” Sykes said.
Carey agreed, saying that people long for the days when then-Speaker Tip O’Neill (D-Mass.) and then-President Reagan (R) could “go at each other’s throats” during the workday and discuss political issues over Irish whiskey when the workday was out.
In part, Carey blamed the 24-hour news cycle for the decrease in amicable bipartisan relationships. Sykes added that because many lawmakers live in their home districts, they have less time to get to know each other than their predecessors, who often lived and raised families in D.C.
With the lack of lawmakers forging bipartisan relationships, Sykes said each of her colleagues has to decide for themselves who they are beholden to: their constituents or the fame that comes with being the loudest voice in the room.
“Right now, there’s a lot of motivation to be popular and that’s fine … but people deserve to have public servants who care about them and their needs and bring those first before their personal desires,” Sykes said. “We could change … but it is going to be an individual choice for each member to decide that the people are more important than the politics.”