Meet the 5 most bipartisan politicians in Congress

These five politicians were ranked as the most bipartisan members of Congress by The Lugar Center’s 2015 Bipartisan Index.

3. Rep. Chris Gibson (R) of New York

Kevin Wolf/AP Images for Toshiba
National winners of the ExploraVision science competition, Lucas Zhou, left, and Chris Li, second from right, talk with Rep. Chris Gibson, R-N.Y., right, in the Rayburn House Office Building on Thursday, June 9, 2016 in Washington. The competition is sponsored by Toshiba and administered by the National Science Teachers Association.

After several tours in Kosovo and Iraq, Chris Gibson ran for New York’s 20th Congressional district seat in the House of Representatives in 2010 against the incumbent Democrat Scott Murphy. Although the political newcomer started off the race behind in the polls, Mr. Gibson eventually went on to beat Murphy with 53.7 percent of the vote. He later won reelection in 2012 and 2014, garnering attention for his unusual ability to garner support from Democratic voters.

“[T]he race here in the Hudson Valley and the Catskills is emerging as something even rarer, and perhaps more intriguing, in an era of reflexive partisanship: a case study of how a Republican can cultivate, win over and retain an unusually high level of support from Democrats in a swing district, while adhering to Republican positions,” reported the New York Times during Gibson’s 2014 campaign. The piece noted the “motley” list of groups supporting him, from the National Rifle Association to the state teachers’ union.

Representative Gibson is a member of No Labels, a group of Republicans and Democrats aiming to challenge Washington’s growing partisanship. And Gibson has challenged partisanship in his own political views: he opposed sending American ground troops to fight the Islamic State, while supporting climate change research and fighting employer discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.

As a supporter of term limits, Gibson announced his decision to retire from politics this year.

3 of 5

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.