This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf.  Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all of my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist.  This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

The answer to the question in this blog headline is two-fold:

• Either split control requires actions in the middle between both Republicans and Democrats…

• Or, split control means nothing other than disagreement – sometimes heated.

I write this for a couple reasons.

First, Congress, which is essentially split between Republicans and Democrats – specifically 50-50 in the U.S. Senate – produces a lot of disagreement (with a few exceptions) as both sides compete to advance THEIR cause. 

Second, as I reflect on the Oregon Legislature back in my days as a state lobbyist, I remember when both the House and Senate were divided evenly and the result was compromise.  Good compromise.

In 2011, the Legislature was split evenly between Democrats and Republicans, much different than today where Democrats rule the roost.

The even split meant that, if anyone wanted to produce a result, they had to work the middle.  Find compromise.  Find the middle.

As a lobbyist, I loved that because all my clients were interested in contributing to modest solutions, not extremes from either side.  Note that I said “all” because a hallmark of the lobbyists in a firm I helped to found was a commitment to make government work better.  To protect clients, sure.  But, also to find workable solutions to public policy problems.

In 2011, the even split in the Oregon House was addressed with the selection of two co-speakers, Democrat Arnie Roblan and Republican Bruce Hanna.  I lobbied both and they welcomed discussions about how to proceed before decisions were made.

The two were selected by Governing Magazine among its eight “Public Officials of the Year,” and praised for “setting in motion a tenure that has been marked by rare bi-partisan cooperation and two of the most productive legislative sessions in Oregon’s history.”

In the Oregon Senate, the split resulted in the installation of Senator Peter Courtney as Senate President, an office he held for years.  As the longest serving senator in Oregon’s history, he recently announced that he won’t run for re-election, which means that, for the first time in years, there will be a new Senate President in the 2023 regular legislative session.

So, there you have it.  Two approaches.

In Congress, split control usually produces divisiveness, selfishness, and rancor.

In Oregon, at least in the past, split control worked to produce better public policy decisions.