House Democrats, Republicans To Hold Debates

House Democratic Caucus Chairman Rahm Emanuel (Ill.) and GOP Conference Chairman Adam Putnam (Fla.) have announced that Democratic and GOP lawmakers will engage in a series of "Congress Debates" starting on Feb. 25 at George Washington University.

Participating in the first debate will be Emanuel, Putnam and Reps. Rob Andrews (D-NJ), Eric Cantor (R-VA), Artur Davis (D-AL), Steve Israel (D-NY), Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA), and Paul Ryan (R-WI).

The debates are being sponsored by the Democratic Leadership Council and the Congressional Institute. The first debate will focus on “How can America foster economic growth and opportunity?”

"All too often in Washington, partisanship dominates every discussion of every issue. But the challenges facing America - from our struggling economy to our strained military to tens of millions of people without health care - are tremendous, and they deserve serious discussion and attention from both sides of the aisle without becoming a partisan tit-for-tat,” Emanuel said in a statement released jointly by he and Putnam. "These debates will enable Republicans and Democrats to discuss our differences without being disagreeable, and our policy differences without being partisan. I look forward to the battle of ideas, not insults."

Putnam added: "My colleagues and I are looking forward to a robust discussion of the challenges middle-class families face right now and how best we can address them with solutions that grow the economy, not the government. Carried out in a genuine spirit of bipartisanship, dialogues such as these can help us to fix a broken Washington.”