Interview: Rep. Jason Altmire on Being a Congressional Moderate

“It’s been proven that the more centrists there are in Congress, the more bills get passed and are enacted into law.”

On December 28th, 2017, former member of Congress and author Jason Altmire joined Merion West’s Erich Prince to discuss his recent book Dead Center, what he believes is driving polarization today, and what can be done to fix it.

Thank you for being with us today, Congressman. You wrote an excellent piece for us this past summer, but for our readers who aren’t familiar with your background, could you tell us about what makes you particularly qualified to discuss our current age of polarization?

I was first elected as a Democrat in 2006, and I served three terms. I represented a district that was a classic swing district, about half Republican and half Democrat. There were blue-collar conservative Democrats and pro-business Republicans. Both of these factions leaned towards the center. And while I was in office, I had a very moderate voting record.

The National Journal does a summary of the votes that occurred in the previous session, and they rank members statistically based upon most liberal to most conservative. So out of the 435 members of the House, somebody has to be in the exact mid-point, and that was me—they placed me in the exact center during one of my terms. That is why the title of my book is Dead Center, because that’s where I was.