How has polarization changed governing?

October 9, 2024

While political polarization is most visible in Congress, it affects the branches of the federal government in different ways. In this wide-ranging episode, our hosts, former Tennessee Governors Phil Bredesen and Bill Haslam speak with Anthony Foxx, former Secretary of Transportation under President Obama, and Margaret Spellings, former Secretary of Education under President Bush, about their experiences navigating division and disagreement while in office and what they see today. How does polarization affect governing? What reforms could help facilitate more productive problem solving? This episode was recorded live at Davidson College in September 2024.

Subscribe and follow You Might be Right wherever you get your audio content – including Apple Podcasts and Spotify – to never miss an episode, or sign up for our email list to receive new episodes straight to your inbox each week here.

“Nothing is happening in Washington until it’s an emergency”
The conversation kicked off with a discussion about how partisanship and polarization impact the work of government. “In Washington, it means inertia,” Spellings said. “Regular order and regular discussions and debates and amendment processes and just the grinding through of issues doesn’t happen like it’s supposed to anymore… nothing is happening in Washington until it’s an emergency situation.”

Spellings noted it “tends to work a little better” at the state level, as “state governments have to work, they have to balance budgets.”

Foxx, who served as mayor of Charlotte from 2009-2013, shared that most of the “friction” he encountered during that time centered on evolving dynamics between state and local government, as “the state government would sometimes take a very hardline position on local issues,” such as an attempted “takeover” of the Charlotte airport in 2013.

Foxx added that while he “started to see” increasing partisanship at the local level while he was in office, things have changed in the last decade as local government has become more of “a launching pad to something else” than it was before.

“A lot of times issues that are in the news nationally or even at the state level come down to the city level, and people try to use issues to sort of catapult themselves forward,” he said.

“A blessing and a curse”
Congressional inaction has given the executive branch more power – but is that a good thing?

“It’s a blessing and a curse…You can run the tables on intent, and record, and signaling through guidance, and all manner of mechanisms how you want something implemented when the Congress has failed to do its job and left that blank opening,” Spellings explained. “The bad news is obviously all the accountability flows to you for those decisions…The other thing is then you’re subject to litigation on why did you decide that? What was the record? Are there resources? Have you moved this to pay for that and so on. So, it’s a real slippery slope.”

Foxx pointed to the ban on earmarks as an example of this “slippery slope.” As “detestable” as some of the earmarks were, he said, they helped get things done and created a reason for members of Congress to talk to each other. He noted that the grant programs that Congress created – and then largely handed over to the executive branch – after earmarks were banned have not been nearly as effective.

As to what impact the Supreme Court’s recent Chevron decision limiting the rulemaking authority of federal agencies might have, Foxx and Spellings outlined two possible scenarios.

“I think we’re in for a long period of significant disruption in how regulations are promulgated,” Foxx said. “It just seems like we’re taking it out of the hands of the agencies that have the knowledge, the expertise, the talent. I just worry that we’re going to be deconstructing a lot of rules that have been built up over time and I have no idea how it’s going to go going forward.”

“Either we’re going to have lots uncertainty and chaos and whatnot, or the Congress is going to have to figure out a way to do their job,” Spellings said.

“A relationship makes all the difference”
The conversation eventually turned to leadership, as Spellings and Foxx shared stories and lessons learned from their time in office, from navigating relationships with the White House and Congress to memorable encounters with Dick Cheney and Grover Norquist.

Foxx, who now serves as a professor and the co-director of the Center for Public Leadership at the Harvard Kennedy School, emphasized the importance of building relationships and connections in public service.

“A relationship makes all the difference, and knowledge of how to analyze policy doesn’t override being a human being and learning how to connect with people, even people who seem different than you are or have different ideas than you do,” he shared. “I think that is a fundamental skill that we have to begin really instilling in students so that they understand that as a public policy-interested person, you have to also believe that the connection between people can be strong enough to overcome differences.”

Spellings, now the President and CEO of the Bipartisan Policy Center, shared how she approaches challenges, from coalition building to navigating difficult decisions and risks.

Recalling her ultimately successful decision to challenge a funding level that had been prescribed for the Department of Education – even after being warned her request could backfire – she said, “The point is you have to call the question, and you have to have the confidence and courage to say yeah, I’m going to walk to the end of the line. I am going to call the President if I need to, but you can’t do it every day.”