Sen. Johnson: Concentrate on areas of agreement to get things done

An unbridgeable partisan divide in Congress?

Hardly for this Congress, apparently.

In a time when there seems to be more partisan rancor than ever, the 115th U.S. congress has been one of the more productive and bipartisan in years.

With about a month to go, the current Congress has had the most laws enacted in at least 20 years, with the highest percentage of, at least, some bi-partisan sponsorship since 2008.

The key is finding areas of agreement to concentrate on, says Wisconsin Republican Sen. Ron Johnson

“When it comes to big policy issues, there’s a huge divide in this nation,” Johnson said. “There are far too many people that rely on this big federal government, that most people think is pretty inefficient, pretty ineffective and not very capable of solving problems.”

Johnson said more than a fourth of the 97 bills passed this year, just in the Homeland Security committee he chairs, have been signed into law.

Johnson added that the partisan divides start to bog things down in areas like expanding the reach and influence of the federal government.

Way too much power is vested there already, he said.

“When I concentrate on that primary goal — keeping America safe, more prosperous and secure,” Johnson said, “when you concentrate on those overall goals and areas of agreement, you can accomplish things.”