After years of ruthless partisanship, House Republicans have a sad about Democrats being in charge

Nice try, Republicans

House Republicans are in the minority now, which has turned them abruptly into believers in bipartisanship … and naturally they’re upset that Democrats aren’t being bipartisan in ways that Republicans never were when in the majority.

Republicans, for instance, are very sad that Democrats haven’t worked with them on their latest bill to protect Dreamers. According to Republican Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, Democrats are “doing it in a way that it won’t become law, just to score political points.” But Democrats say they did hold bipartisan meetings before introducing the bill, and none of the 10 Republican co-sponsors of the Dreamer bill in the last Congress are still in office, so it’s not clear why we should believe Democrats were locking out some big bipartisan movement. And Democrats can vote it through the House without a single Republican—the Senate is the problem, and there, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell won’t be moved by a few Republican co-sponsors.

In another case, Democratic Rep. Mike Doyle tried to craft a compromise net neutrality bill that Republicans could like, only to have three of them blast him and release competing bills. “I don’t have thin skin about this, but when they were in charge, they had the rules,” Doyle said. “Now we’re in charge, and maybe some of them don’t understand that yet.”