- Mark Leibovich told Insider that the days of high-profile lawmakers serving as bipartisan institutions are largely over.
- The late Sen. John McCain worked across the aisle on a slew of major bills during his tenure.
- Leibovich in his forthcoming pointed to McCain's funeral as a display of the old Washington.
Mark Leibovich told Insider in an interview that the days of big-name institutional figures like the late Sen. John McCain of Arizona commanding bipartisan consensus in Congress are "absolutely" over, reshaped by the sharpened political climate in Washington, DC.
McCain, the 2008 Republican presidential nominee who was known to cross the aisle to work with Democrats on major legislation, passed away in August 2018 after battling glioblastoma, an aggressive form of brain cancer.
Leibovich, a staff writer at The Atlantic and author of the forthcoming book, "Thank You for Your Servitude: Donald Trump's Washington and the Price of Submission," pointed to McCain's funeral service in the nation's capital as a display of the sort of Washington of yesteryear — with the attendance of former Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama, and other luminaries like former Vice President Dick Cheney and former Defense Secretary William Cohen.
"There's a big scene in the book, at John McCain's funeral, where it was sort of seen as the funeral for the old Washington with old senators," he said. "Trump wasn't invited. And you had Barack Obama and George W. Bush being the two eulogists — two people who defeated McCain pretty bitterly in two separate presidential elections."
"I don't know how the fever will break, but I don't think we're here," he added.
As gerrymandering has reduced the number of competitive districts in recent years and split-ticket voting has become less prevalent than even a decade ago, there is less of an incentive for many members to work together to pass consequential bills, as they often become mired in political squabbles or attack advertisements.
President Joe Biden — who spent 36 years as a United States senator representing Delaware before serving as vice president for eight years — began his tenure on Capitol Hill in the early 1970s, when Congress boasted an array of liberal Republicans and conservative Democrats.
Now, those sorts of federal lawmakers — who defied the traditional divide between the left and the right — are a rarity.
While lawmakers passed a $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill and a gun reform bill since Biden entered the White House last year, other large bills — like the now-scrapped Build Back Better Act — have often passed the House and stalled in the Senate due to the threat of a legislative filibuster.