Washington, D.C., is at the end of a cycle and the new year will bring with it new representation, both in the White House and in Congress.
Among those leaving this year will be freshman Rep. Joe Cunningham (D-S.C.), who was defeated in his reelection fight. The southern lawmaker turned heads a few days after he was sworn in when he tried to bring a six-pack of beers onto the House floor.
When he was stopped from bringing booze onto the floor, Cunningham reportedly chuckled and said, “It’s Friday, too.” In a tweet, Cunningham said that “making friends when you’re a freshman is hard and I thought I’d grease the skids with some lowcountry beer.”
But in his second attempt, to sneak beers onto the House floor, Cunningham was successful.
On Thursday, the lawmaker gave his final speech from the floor and thanked his staff. He said, “Sadly, though, here in Washington D.C., bipartisanship and civility seem to be the exception and not the rule.”
He went on to say that to save our “battered” democracy, “We must, agree on one basic truth: that the other side is not the enemy. The enemy is the stubbornness of our biases. The enemy is a political system that seeks to divide us for sport. Let’s fight that and not each other.”
He continued, “Our country would be much better served if Democrats and Republicans could come together I’ve been trying to work with people since the first day I got here. I won’t ever stop reaching across the aisle, or trying to work with one another or sitting down and having a beer and trying to listen to each other.”
The lawmaker added, “For the betterment of this county, we have to come together, we have to sit down and listen to each other and maybe even have a beer.”
At that point, the lawmaker pulled a beer from the inside pocket of his jacket, cracked it and said, “In the spirit of bipartisanship and cooperation, I raise this glass to my colleagues, both Democrats and Republicans.”