A reporter at a press conference last week asked some members of the so-called Centrist Coalition-a group of moderate senators-whether they were getting lonely in light of that day’s announcement that one of their own-Republican William Cohen of Maine-was leaving Congress after three terms. In so many words, the answer was yes, yes, yes.
The question then is, why are solid lawmakers running from Congress? Something is wrong here.
Right in front of Cohen are Sens. Bill Bradley (D-N.J.), Nancy Kassebaum (R-Kan.), Mark Hatfield (R-Ore.), Sam Nunn (D-Ga.) and Paul Simon (D-Ill.).
Is the increasingly acidic atmosphere of lawmaking-whether it involves telecom reform or budget balancing-discouraging public service and making the institution a place where allegiance to big party bosses is king?
Here is how colleagues size up Cohen. Listen and decide for yourself whether this is the sort of individual Congress can afford to lose. These aren’t kooky people talking. Members of the Centrist Coalition have their own budget plan. They use reason, and sound, well, normal.
“Senator Cohen has been a very, very powerful force for common sense in the Senate,” said Sen. John Chafee (R-R.I.), a senior member of the Centrist Coalition. “It’s a great loss.”
John Breaux (D-La.) got more to the point: “I think that Sen. Cohen’s retirement is symptomatic of the frustration that many moderates are finding in the Congress, both in the House and Senate, both on the Republican and Democratic sides.
“I think most of them feel that solutions today to our problems have to come from the center, working out. With the loss of Senator Cohen it becomes even more difficult to engage a group of moderates in the middle that constitute a majority. It’s a real loss.”
Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D-Conn.) hit it on the head: “There’s a growing majority of people out there who want independent, non-partisan, practical, common sense government such as Bill Cohen has symbolized. So we’ve got this strange situation where that force getting something done in Washington-regardless of party labels-rolls out there across America while in here centrists, moderates, doers-like Bill Cohen-depart and the extremes dominate. And, you know, that can’t go on for long with our government, hoping to hold the trust of the American people.”
Hope nothing. Better fix it now. That trust is slip, sliding away.
