Congressmen Champion Centrism

Guest lecturers emphasize importance of bipartisanship

By JONATHAN MONG Sun News Editor

In an effort to bring civility and centrist-minded politics to America’s doorstep, former House representatives Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.) and Rep. Max Rose (D-N.Y.) visited campus on Tuesday for a lecture called “Searching for the Center.”

The Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy sponsored the event as part of its Learning and Leading Through Difference Initiative, which the Cornell Roosevelt Institute co-sponsored. Arranged by No Labels — an organization seeking ballot access to run a bipartisan “unity ticket” in 2024 if both parties select nominees that are too extreme — the panel was moderated by Liz Morrison, No Labels’s co-executive director.

Upton represented Michigan’s fourth congressional district from 1987 to 1992 and its sixth congressional district from 1993 to 2022 before retiring, while Rose represented New York’s 11th congressional district from 2018 to 2020 before losing to Nicole Malliotakis (R-N.Y.) in 2020 and again in 2022.

While in Congress, Upton served on the House Energy and Commerce Committee and was its chairman from 2010 to 2016. Rose, who was in the Army from 2010 to 2014, served on the House Committee on Veterans Affairs and the House Committee on Homeland Security during his lone term in office.

Both Upton and Rose were ranked as moderate to centrist by Govtrack, a website that tracks legislators’ political ideologies. They served together on the Problem Solvers Caucus during

Rose’s term.

Following a brief introduction in which both representatives explained their paths to Capitol Hill, Upton and Rose launched into a discussion about political polarization in the United States, occasionally guided by questions from Morrison or from the audience.

Early in the lecture, Rose highlighted what he called the “TMZ-ification” of American politics as a reason why members of Congress were becoming more extreme than in the past, adding that members of Congress now needed to have brands of their own and market themselves to capitalize on financial opportuni-