Linda McMahon Questions Chris Murphy’s Center Aisle Caucus

At a time of intense political polarization in Washington and hyperventilating talk radio, U.S. Rep. Christopher Murphy says he is trying to bring the warring parties together.

As co-chairman of a group called the Center Aisle Caucus, Murphy gets together regularly with about 40 fellow U.S. House members to talk about bipartisanship and breaking the gridlock.

“We are clearly an insurgent movement in Congress in an era of rank partisanship,” Murphy said of the group

But his likely opponent in the fall election, Republican Linda McMahon, says the caucus is a “charade” and a “political ploy” because Murphy is a hard-core liberal who votes with the Democrats and their House leader, Rep. Nancy Pelosi, virtually all of the time.

Murphy said he was thrilled recently to be endorsed by MoveOn.org, one of the most liberal political groups on the scene.

“Try as he might, Congressman Murphy can’t hide the fact that he voted with his party 98 percent of the time he has been in Washington,” said McMahon’s campaign manager, Corry Bliss. “It’s going to take more than a made-up caucus to convince Connecticut voters to ignore his hyper-partisan voting record.”

Bliss added, “Only a career politician would have the audacity to vote like Congressman Chris Murphy does and then look his constituents in the eye and claim he is not partisan.”

Nathan L. Gonzales, deputy editor of the nonpartisan Rothenberg Political Report, said the caucus is more of a social group than one that gets involved in the nitty gritty of writing complicated legislation on major issues. The group’s members have sat with fellow colleagues at the State of the Union Address, visited the National Archives together with their families and hosted nonpartisan speakers on issues such as the national debt and the federal budget.

Gonzales said that the caucus is mentioned often during election campaigns, but it is not a significant force in the nation’s capital.

“From what I can see, it’s not a particularly active group,” Gonzales said in a phone interview from Washington, D.C. “I think members of it probably use it more outside of the Beltway rather than inside. … I don’t think you can point to a major piece of legislation where their influence has pushed it one way or the other, but I don’t think they’re trying to do that. This is more about using the social aspect of the city to affect the tone, rather than the agenda, of Washington.”

While politicians such as Republican John McCain of Arizona and Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman, an independent who caucuses with the Democrats, sometimes cross the political aisle, Gonzales said there is no official group in Washington that writes moderate legislation on a large swath of issues. Instead, a group such as the bipartisan Gang of 14 in the U.S. Senate is more likely to spring up briefly on a specific issue and then fade away.

“I don’t know that voters reward moderation,” Gonzales said. “If you’re a member who talks with somebody from the other side of the aisle, you are immediately met with a primary challenge because you are viewed as compromising. The primary voters give them a disincentive to work together.”

As part of the caucus activities, Murphy held a town hall meeting last month in New Britain with U.S. Rep. Timothy V. Johnson, a Republican from Illinois who serves as another co-chairman of the group. Johnson traveled to Connecticut because Murphy had trekked to Illinois last October for a similar “bipartisan town hall” that attracted a crowd of about 100 people.

In New Britain, Murphy said, McMahon sent protesters to the meeting. McMahon spokesman Tim Murtaugh declined to comment. Murphy said Susan Bysiewicz, his opponent in the Aug. 14 Democratic primary, had criticized his role in the caucus because he “shouldn’t be cooperating with Republicans.”

Murtaugh rejected Murphy’s characterization that the caucus is “an insurgent movement,” saying he has not seen a grassroots push for bipartisanship in Washington, D.C. Murtaugh added, “He claims to be a centrist, but look who his friends are. Centrists don’t exactly get endorsed by MoveOn.org every day.”

Johnson, who says he is not seeking re-election partly because of his frustration with Washington, created the caucus with a colleague in 2006. The group now has four co-chairs, two Republicans and two Democrats. The leadership, however, is breaking up. With Johnson retiring and Murphy running for the Senate, another co-chairman, Democrat Russ Carnahan of Missouri, is facing a tough primary battle after his district was sharply redrawn following population shifts calculated by the U.S. Census.

Murphy’s spokesman, Ben Marter, said, “They’re not putting together a legislative issues agenda. No one ever claimed this was composed of centrist members. The point is to get together and build relationships. Then they can talk about what they can agree on.”

Despite any criticism, Murphy is not backing away from the idea. If he is elected to the U.S. Senate, he said, he wants to be a “bridge builder” to forge consensus on issues.

“I’ve never claimed that the Center Aisle Caucus alone is going to bring civility back to Congress,” Murphy said. “I don’t claim that we’re changing the world.”