Bridge work: like the erroneous report of Mark Twain's passing, those lamenting the demise of bipartisan cooperation in lawmaking are exaggerated.

• Author: Hood, John
• Position: Free & Clear

Bipartisanship is dead. Everyone says so. Democrats and Republicans are constantly at each other's throats--in Washington, in Raleigh, in communities across North Carolina. They're all shouting, but no one is listening. As a result, the very survival of self-government is at stake. It turns out, however, that bipartisanship always seems to be dead.

Go back a dozen years, a hundred years, even thousands of years to the very birth of representative government, and you will find the equivalent of contemporary politicos and journalists complaining about a lack of consensus on big issues and an unwillingness to put the public good above factional or partisan interest. Cicero, the ancient Roman statesman and orator who would eventually be assassinated by a political rival, once warned that politicians who "take counsel for a part of the citizens, and neglect a part, bring into the state an element of the greatest mischief and stir up sedition and discord." Rather than "act like sailors who quarrel for a place at the helm," Cicero said, true leaders would "care for the whole body politic."

I consider Cicero one of the wisest human beings who ever lived. His advice here is sound. But it's important to remember that, be they ancient or modern, political commentators tend to focus on what is controversial. Much of the day-to-day operation of government is far from partisan or adversarial. Some of it, necessary and even praiseworthy, is pretty dull. And in just about any session of Congress or state legislature, you'll find examples of bipartisan cooperation on momentous issues.

North Carolina offers several recent examples. One of the most striking occurred in 2011 with the passage of the Judicial Reinvestment Act, which made major changes in how criminals are sentenced and punished. Introduced by two Republican and two Democratic members of the state House, the bill reflected a convergence of opinion on how best to deploy taxpayer money to promote public safety. Conservatives long convinced of the importance of predictable, consistent penalties to deter crime had come to believe that incarceration was overused for some offenders--particularly those who had their probation revoked for reasons other than committing more crimes. Liberals long convinced that community penalties--such as probation or suspended sentences--were fairer than incarceration for many offenders had come to believe that they needed to be more rigorously evaluated and uniformly...