Congress needs a mediation tool to dissolve gridlock

The major challenge of governance these days lies with Congress -- where stalemate is causing some members to flee in frustration. The United States faces many issues that require thoughtful, vibrant leadership. Yet Congress has an approval rating below 25 percent, and a troubling amount of anger (and sometimes violence) increasingly accompanies the articulation of political differences.

At its best, legislating is a difficult business. Diverse, conflicting interests contend for the attention and support of legislators, who must persuade party stalwarts and their opponents to support particular bills. An adversary process has become ever more contentious over the past decade. And the inherent political "noise," the economic downturn, home foreclosures and joblessness have provoked a rage seemingly directed at Washington, especially toward Congress.

Both Republicans and Democrats need help reaching across the aisle to engage in meaningful debate and to turn bills into sound laws. The president needs a creative Congress that will enact effective and sometimes even transformative legislation. The American people need a government that addresses the critical issues of the day. Across America we need a civil discourse to strengthen our democratic governance. We also need a strong, fair methodology to surmount what have become roadblock issues.

The pathway that individuals use to reach a decision is often as important as the decision itself. The methodology can spell the difference between a good decision and a poor one -- or between one that succeeds and one that fails. Wise process can determine the sustainability of a decision, while poor process can sow the seeds of reversal.

A case in point is health-care reform. Consider the process used by the Clinton and Obama administrations, respectively; the distinguishing (and perhaps decisive) element is transparency. The Clinton team toiled in relative secrecy and lost; President Obama, by contrast, worked in a fishbowl. Notwithstanding the political machinations of a determined opposition and numerous miscalculations by proponents, transparency prevailed and a historic bill became law. Process matters.

What is needed is a framework for a substantive, and better, process.

Roger Fisher, author of the 1991 book "Getting to Yes," showed how negotiators often fail to reach agreement because they lack a process for exploring and meeting the essential interests of both (or all) parties. He called this "win-win" approach "principled negotiation."

The same negotiation techniques apply to mediation, which is the basis for alternative dispute resolution. Unlike arbitration, in which an arbitrator (like a judge) determines outcome, mediation by a neutral party is simply "assisted negotiation." The mediator assists the parties to understand their respective interests and helps them devise solutions that satisfy those interests -- but only the parties can decide the ultimate outcome.

When senators or representatives find themselves locked into irreconcilable positions on issues of national importance, third-party mediation could help overcome a stalemate. What if Congress were to establish a politically neutral service for legislative mediation, organized along the lines of the Congressional Budget Office?

By highlighting information in a nonpartisan manner, legislative mediation could even enrich the policy debate in Congress by strengthening the platform for that debate. Mediation would provide an instrument for promoting agreement in a divided Congress. Neutral legislative mediators employing alternative dispute resolution techniques would assist legislators at their request to find common ground.

We must discover more constructive processes for building consensus in the halls of Congress and other public policy forums. What we need now is policy research to ascertain whether and how legislative mediation could be a practical tool for resolving congressional gridlock.

The writer, president emeritus of the Education for Employment Foundation, served as director general of the International Development Law Organization in Rome from 1983 to 2000.