Questions about Bipartisanship

This past weekend’s David Broder op-ed was typical of the genre; after taking a not-so-subtle dig at the newly seated Senator Al Franken, Broder spent most of the column cautioning Democrats against constructively using their majority.  Instead, Broder argues that Democrats should weaken their legislation as much as is necessary to gain a handful of Republican votes.  Perhaps this is my partisanship talking, but I don’t actually understand why explicitly bipartisan outreach is necessary in an environment where Democrats – or any part, really – have 60-votes.  After all, the stated rational behind bipartisan legislation is that it comes closest to representing the interests of all Americans.  And while that might be the case in scenarios where Congress is evenly divided – or even if Congress is controlled by one party and the White House another – it ceases to be relevant in scenarios like this one, where a clear majority of the country voted for a single (relatively) ideologically consistent party.  Pace Broder, if the Democrats were to achieve perfect unity and use their filibuster-proof majority to railroad legislation through Congress, said legislation would – almost by default – represent the broad interests of the majority of Americans.

Of course, it’s worth acknowledging that there isn’t perfect congruency between the views of a given constituency and the views of its representative(s).  But that said, I don’t think there’s any evidence to suggest that, ceteris paribus, you’re more likely to achieve “representative” legislation in a single-party environment by reaching out to the marginal party.