Ties that bond: in life and in the legislature, connections are more important than divisions.

• Author: Wolf, Mark
• Position: Legislatures

Divisions abound in statehouses. Republicans on one side of the aisle, Democrats on the other. Conservatives vs. liberals. House and Senate. Yet, if you look beyond the obvious, you'll find invisible strings that connect lawmakers: a shared love of making music, a surprising family history with the same Founding Father, a childhood linked to the same small town.

A Love of Singing

When Vermont Representative Mitzi Johnson (D) was an eighth-grader, her new piano teacher asked her what kind of music she liked to play. She had been taking lessons for nine years, and it was the first time any of her teachers had posed that question.

"With his help, I found music that I loved, and I found a way to love music. That's the biggest gift I can give to the people who want to be part of our group: to help them find a way to love singing together, so we can find a way to make this connection in what can be a very contentious profession," Johnson says.

The group she refers to is the Statehouse Singers, a collection of 25 or so lawmakers, staffers and the occasional lobbyist united by a love of singing.

The House has a tradition of daily devotionals, which can be performed by anyone from religious leaders and Vermont artists to children's groups singing the state song, Johnson says.

For years, Johnson and a handful of colleagues got together on Wednesday nights for sing-alongs around the piano. "One of us, I think it was Alison Clarkson, said we should put together a devotional. That was six or seven years ago. We probably started with the state song, a beautiful song called These Green Mountains,'" says Johnson, whose musical background made her the group's conductor.

"We broadcast an email that says, 'Everybody come and join us,' and we probably do six hours of rehearsal to put something together," she says. "It's bipartisan--we get legislators and staff and members of the administration. We're hoping to rope in someone from the judicial branch. We pick a song that is pretty neutral politically, something that has either to do with Vermont or just working together."

A recent choice, "Turn the World Around," by Harry Belafonte, included the lyrics, "We come from the mountain, living on the mountain / Go back to the mountain, turn the world around."

"I got the idea from Counterpoint, a wonderful group of a cappella singers in Vermont," Johnson says. "They sing this song, and we've done their arrangement of the Vermont state song as well. The message was really fun and upbeat, and the arrangement is fabulous. It was one of the most challenging pieces we've done. It...