OPINION:
More than two decades ago, we had a front-row seat to something that seems increasingly rare in Washington: two senators from different parties putting politics aside to solve problems of enormous consequence for our country.
One of us served as chief of staff to Sen. Joe Lieberman, Connecticut Democrat. The other served as staff director and chief counsel to Sen. Susan M. Collins, Maine Republican, on the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee (now the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee).
In the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the independent 9/11 Commission identified serious failures in our nation’s intelligence system. It found federal agencies that did not share what they knew, working in silos that left the country exposed.
People were interested in these podcasts
The commission issued its recommendations on July 22, 2004. Senate leadership assigned the task of turning these into law to the Governmental Affairs Committee — not because it had jurisdiction, but because leadership wanted a bill and they knew that Ms. Collins and Lieberman could work together to get it done.
The committee faced turf challenges from federal agencies and other congressional committees, each of which believed it deserved a hand in rewriting intelligence policy. Yet Senate leadership had picked Ms. Collins and Lieberman to take the lead precisely because it wanted results.
The two senators immediately agreed on a plan that shaped everything that followed: They would work out their disagreements between themselves in private. Once they had reached a decision, they would stand together.
For those of us on staff, the message was unmistakable: We were not one Republican team and one Democratic team keeping score against each other. We were one team trying to solve a problem.
That trust was tested more than once. Intelligence reform meant rewriting authorities that had not been touched in decades, over fierce resistance from agencies that did not want to give them up. There were times when the whole effort seemed likely to die.
One Sunday night near the end of negotiations, it nearly did. Ms. Collins and Lieberman were at an event at the Kennedy Center. In the middle of Billy Joel’s tribute to Elton John, Ms. Collins sent Lieberman a message on his BlackBerry proposing language that might break the impasse. Lieberman agreed.
At 11:24 p.m., they had a deal. It was a small moment behind the scenes, but it captured something about how they worked: Neither one cared who got the credit. They cared about getting it done.
The result was the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004, the most significant restructuring of the American intelligence community in more than half a century. It created the director of national intelligence and the National Counterterrorism Center and tore down walls that had kept agencies from sharing what they knew. These reforms have made our country safer.
That was not the end of the partnership. Ms. Collins and Lieberman would investigate the government’s failures after Hurricane Katrina. The investigation included 22 hearings, more than 325 interviews and more than 800,000 pages of documents. An inquiry chaired by a Republican senator into a Republican administration’s failures, with a Democrat at her side, could easily have turned into a partisan mess.
Lieberman later credited Ms. Collins with keeping the investigation nonpolitical to the end.
Their partnership faced another test in 2010, with the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” Ms. Collins and Lieberman first tried to move it through the defense authorization bill. Ms. Collins negotiated with then-Majority Leader Harry Reid, Nevada Democrat, to find a path that could attract enough Republican votes.
It fell apart, but they did not quit. Instead, they introduced a standalone repeal bill.
Ms. Collins had been the lone Republican on the Armed Services Committee to back repeal. She did not stop at her own vote. She made the case to her colleagues directly. Six Republicans ultimately joined Democrats on final passage.
Today, gay men and women are serving openly in the U.S. military, thanks to Ms. Collins and Lieberman.
Twice, a cause they believed in seemed finished. Twice, they found a way through.
Lieberman is sadly no longer with us. We miss his decency, stubborn optimism and belief that Americans have more in common than our politics gives us credit for.
Today, we need the approach to public service that defined his partnership with Ms. Collins. Washington is perhaps more polarized than ever before, and reaching across the aisle too often gets treated less like statesmanship and more like surrender.
Ms. Collins and Lieberman never accepted that view. What we saw up close when we watched them was not some abstract commitment to “bipartisanship”; it was trust, a refusal to score points off each other and a determination to keep going.
That is harder to do than most people realize, but it is the kind of leadership we need today.
• Clarine Nardi Riddle served as chief of staff to Sen. Joe Lieberman. Michael Bopp served as staff director and chief counsel to Sen. Susan M. Collins.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.