Decision time

“It’s decision time,” declared Connecticut U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy Friday as he announced agreement had been reached between Republican and Democratic negotiators on a combination border and foreign aid bill.

In point of fact, Murphy was a bit premature. Text of the legislation was still waiting to be released over the weekend, so it’s not entirely clear that Senators have something to vote on yet or what that will be. But, the effort is still an instructive look at the legislative process from which the fractious U.S. House of Representatives could learn a thing or two.

The Senate’s bill is a textbook case on the process of negotiating compromise on difficult issues. It doesn’t contain everything that any senators want and contains much that many have trouble with. Some Republicans are wary that it only provides political cover for President Joe Biden on immigration. Some Democrats fear that it is too generous toward Israel’s war machine.

So, the coming week — as reportedly test votes are planned on the bill — will teach us much about not only the strength of compromise lawmakers are able to muster in today’s fraught political climate but also the capacity they have to work together to move issues forward.

And, coincidentally, it comes during a time when a very different controversy has offered an opportunity for Republicans and Democrats to find common ground. Few senators may be further apart on the merits of government regulation than Illinois Democrat Richard Durbin and South Carolina Republican Lindsey Graham, but the two sounded remarkably like-minded during a hearing last week on the degree to which social media companies are managing their platforms safely for children.

“Their design choices, their failures to adequately invest in trust and safety, their constant pursuit of engagement and profit over basic safety have all put our kids and grandkids at risk,” said Durbin in remarks before the Judiciary Committee he chairs heard testimony from five top social media platforms.

Chimed in Graham, the ranking Republican on the committee, “After years of working on this issue with you and others, I’ve come to conclude the following: social media companies as they’re currently designed and operate are dangerous products.”

As with any public hearings, the hearing offered plentiful opportunities for political grandstanding, and, to be sure, it’s easier to envision collaboration between Republicans and Democrats on regulation issues involving children’s safety. But it’s also true that so far, the one piece of legislation dealing with the matter — the Kids Online Safety Act introduced by Tennessee Republican Marsha Blackburn and Connecticut Democrat Richard Blumenthal — is itself a long way from “decision time,” facing potential opposition from, among others, free-speech groups who fear it goes too far.

Nevertheless, both exercises — the work on an immigration-foreign aid package and that on regulating the apparently reluctant social media platforms — provide evidence that our political parties can work together when the stakes are high and the will is there.

Those conditions don’t yet seem to have coalesced in the House, where conspiracy theories and political theatrics led Speaker Mike Johnson to declare the Senate compromise would likely be dead on arrival.

So, is it really decision time for federal lawmakers on immigration, arms supplies to our allies and online safety for our children? The Senate has shown it can be and the kind of work it takes to get there.

But the ultimate outlook is still very much in question.