Finding Common Ground In-person— Not Over Zoom: State Reps. Mark Klicker and Alex Ramel

Let's Find Common Ground

USC Dornsife Center for the Political Future

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5 • 2.7K Ratings

🗓️ 9 November 2023

⏱️ 27 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

When conservative Republican Mark Klicker and liberal Democrat Alex Ramel met in person for the first time, their opinions about each other rapidly changed. A frosty online exchange of policy differences over Zoom quickly turned into a constructive example of close bipartisan cooperation. After Washington State eased COVID restrictions and resumed in-person legislative sessions last year, Representatives Ramel and Klicker worked together on a renewable energy tax bill. The state legislation has just become law. Much of tax revenues from wind and solar will now go to the communities where renewable energy is produced. The bill was designed to answer some potential local objections to renewable energy projects and to make progress on combating climate change. In this episode, both legislators tell us that online legislative sessions were a barrier to bridging differences and finding common ground. What had been missing during months of online meetings were moments of eye contact and the opportunity to establish informal, in-person contact. We hear more about their legislation, finding common ground on the environment, and their friendship across partisan divides.

Transcript

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0:00.0	One cause of polarization and political divides might be this.
0:04.5	We simply don't spend enough time in the same room,
0:08.8	with people we work with, play with, or used to meet in person.
0:13.5	That's part of what we learned in today's podcast
0:16.0	where the conservative from a deep bread district
0:18.7	and a liberal from a decidedly blue part of his state.
0:23.1	They worked together on bipartisan environmental legislation,
0:27.3	but only after they could meet face to face.
0:31.0	What I've done with many of my friends and the environmental groups
0:35.3	and their personal friends of mine,
0:37.4	we all think differently,
0:39.4	but we could still all have many things in common.
0:43.6	And that's really kind of the beauty of what we do.
0:58.3	This is Let's Find Common Ground. I'm Ashley Melntite.
1:08.3	And I'm Richard Davies. We're about to hear from two state representatives from Washington.
1:13.8	Republican Mark Klicker and Democrat Alex Rammell.
1:17.3	In the past year, they've worked together on a renewable energy tax bill
1:21.3	that passed and has been signed into law.
1:23.8	Their work together came only after COVID restrictions
1:27.3	on in-person legislative sessions and meetings in Washington state were lifted.
1:32.8	Alex first became a state rep in early 2020.
1:35.8	Mark's first term began a year later.
	...

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