Cannibals eat only their enemies.
It would be more accurate to say that the legislation dramatizes the near-impossibility of this Congress doing anything substantial on a bipartisan basis. The claim of bipartisanship rests on the sponsorship of the bill by Reps. Chris Shays, a Connecticut Republican, and Marty Meehan, a Massachusetts Democrat. The Shays-Meehan partnership is a twin to the Senate pairing of John McCain, Arizona Republican, and Russ Feingold, Wisconsin Democrat, who wrote a nearly identical companion measure. Last year, when the Senate voted on shutting off a filibuster against McCain-Feingold, you saw an even sharper split between the parties. When the Senate takes up campaign finance next month, as promised, the Republicans will again try to filibuster it to death.