In this Legislature’s Civility Caucus, Republicans and Democrats actually like talking to each other

This story was first published by Minnesota Reformer. Read the original article here. 

Sandra Feist and Kristin Robbins sat behind a desk in a state Capitol committee hearing room, preparing to tell a panel of their colleagues about their bill requiring schools to have student cell phone policies. 

They were working together on the bill despite the vast political gulf between them: Feist is an immigration attorney and progressive state representative from New Brighton who sponsors bills that would, for example, make Minnesota a sanctuary for undocumented immigrants.

Robbins is former executive director of the Economic Club of Minnesota and a Maple Grove representative who sponsors pro-police bills aimed, for instance, at progressive Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty.

At the hearing, their appearance broadcast their different vibes: Feist looked ready for a show at First Ave: bright pink lipstick, cat-eyed glasses, her trademark swath of red dyed hair atop a pixie haircut and a loose, white V-neck shirt and dark jacket. Robbins was more business luncheon ready: She donned a Rachel-style blowout, subdued pink lipstick, a dress shirt, black suit jacket and gold jewelry.

But their smiles matched perfectly. And most important: They’re both mothers concerned about cell phones and kids.

They get it: The country’s partisan polarization, including its at-times violent, dehumanizing rhetoric, has landed at the Minnesota Capitol, and Republicans and Democrats don’t often pair up to try to get bills passed. 

But Feist and Robbins got to know each other through the Civility Caucus, where a handful of Republicans and Democrats regularly gather and try to get beyond politics through lunches, happy hours and hot dish cookoffs.

That’s how Feist and Robbins discovered they share a concern about cell phones in schools, and ended up co-sponsoring the bill (HF4581/SF4749). It requires the Minnesota School Boards Association to develop a model policy on student cell phone use by Dec. 15, and requires school boards to adopt policies by March 15.

In the process, Feist and Robins forged a genuine relationship.

“We really enjoy talking to each other,” Robbins said. “We both care about bipartisan relationships. It’s really about the building of relationships so you know each other as colleagues so that when it comes to the hard negotiations, you can sit down and trust each other.”

The Civility Caucus is chaired by two lawmakers from the House and Senate, one Republican and one Democrat: This session, the House chairs are Robbins and Feist, and Senate chairs are Republican Zach Duckworth and Democrat Grant Hauschild. 

Feist is a lawyer, but not oppositional: She likes to turn the temperature down.

It hit her one day while leaving the Capitol: All those lawmakers riding the elevator and getting in cars to go home were her coworkers. It reminded her of the Looney Tunes characters Ralph the Wolf and Sam the Sheepdog, who clocked in for work each day, fought like hell, and then amicably clocked out and went home.  

“It is our job to represent our constituents’ values. And so I feel like I’m able to have a sense of emotional distance to say, you know, I might not agree with (them) but it is their job to come here and reflect their community’s values,” Feist said.

One of the unintended consequences of barring lobbyists from buying lawmakers dinners is that they don’t get together as often, she said.

Meanwhile, the debate you see on the House and Senate floor is “theater,” Feist said.

“We’re expected to be colorful and interesting. I would prefer to be boring. I’d prefer for everyone not be interested in my bills,” Feist said. “I really like the nerdy, technical work of legislating.”

At Civility Caucus gatherings, conversation might go to hot-button issues, but the conversations are much more productive, she said.

“I think ultimately we make better law when we can hear one another’s perspective,” Feist said. “I legitimately enjoy the company of people who I disagree with on most things.”

For example?

“I really like Pat Garofalo,” she said. He’s a traditional, pre-Trump Republican. “We don’t have a lot of the same political opinions, but we’ve worked together on things and I always enjoy having an exchange of perspectives and hearing his take on things.”

Robbins joined the caucus her freshman year, in 2019.

“It was a great way to get to know colleagues that you normally would never encounter,” she said.

Outside of committee colleagues, she said, lawmakers have very little time to get to know each other, especially those in the other chamber.

“We’re all just running 100 miles per hour,” Robbins said. “It just really brings people together over a meal where you just sit by someone you never met and just start talking.”

And that’s how they learn they have a lot in common, from caring for children, to caring for aging parents.

“We’re all in this together and we’re all trying to accomplish good for the state and see that people are well, even if we have significant policy disagreements,” Robbins said.

Robbins worked for the late Harris Fawell, an Illinois Republican congressman, and former U.S. Rep. Tim Penny, a Minnesota Democrat, on the bipartisan Porkbusters Coalition, which exposed lawmakers’ pet pork projects. She and Penny founded the nonpartisan Economic Club of Minnesota.  

“So when it came to the Civility Caucus, I didn’t think twice,” Robbins said. “I’ve always been someone who’s tried to build relationships across the aisle.”

The caucus is even more necessary now that the DFL controls both chambers and has less need to work with Republicans, she said. In the recent past, Minnesotans have elected divided government, and the parties had to work together.

Former state DFL Rep. JoAnn Ward of Lake Elmo founded the Civility Caucus in 2017.

“I sat on the House floor and listened to grandstanding and pontificating and people speaking to the camera and thought: ‘This is not effective government. We could do so much better,’” Ward said. “There’s just so much time wasted.”

Ward is a former teacher with a background in organizational development who has long focused on getting people to work together. She’s a fiscal conservative, social liberal. When she first pitched the idea of bringing Republicans and Democrats together, people thought it was crazy.

“Here I am, this little freshman. Ageism is real. It’s really powerful now at the Capitol. The men would say, ‘Honey, things don’t work that way,’” Ward said.

About a half dozen lawmakers showed up at the first meetings — many of them her friends — and they began holding lunches every month or two. Sometimes they helped pack food at shelters or spent a day at a shelter.

When she was campaigning, people would often ask Ward why Republicans and Democrats can’t “just get along.” The Civility Caucus gave her an answer.

“I could say, ‘This is what I’m doing about that,’” Ward said.

Hauschild got involved with the caucus soon after getting elected to the Senate in 2022.

“I consider myself to be a pretty moderate, middle-of-the-road legislator,” he said. “It’s really just a great, great way to meet a lot of folks across the aisle, and folks within your own caucus or in the other house in kind of a non-pressurized, non-political way.”

“You might still adamantly disagree on policy or in committee or on the floor, but you kind of see their humanity,” Hauschild said.

He used to work for former North Dakota U.S. Senator Heidi Heitkamp, a moderate Democrat who worked across the aisle with former Sens. Bob Corker of Tennessee and the late John McCain. So he set out to do the same: He and two Republican senators flew around the North Shore and Duluth together on a Cirrus jet — which are manufactured in Hauschild’s district.

Hauschild represents a very rural district, and shares a lot of issues with rural Republicans. He said he’s forged a good “policy relationship” with Republican Sen. Jordan Rasmusson of Fergus Falls, who represents an area where Hauschild’s grandparents had a lake cabin. They’ve worked together on outdoor education funding, hatcheries, and boat landings.

While Feist allows that many in the caucus are who you’d expect, e.g., moderates, some seemingly partisan lawmakers, like Republican Sen. Mark Koran, who once ran for state party chair, have been members, too. Koran is a former co-chair of the Civility Caucus. He knows people think he’s a “radical conservative,” but says he has “broader views” on children, people with disabilities, and the elderly.

“That’s actually the reason I did it: To challenge people’s views or perception (of) not just who I am, but who Republicans are,” Koran said. “If you’re just willing to have a conversation, you can find agreement on a whole pile of issues.”

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