There are few bastions of bipartisanship left in Congress, but the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission was one. That is, until the fight over Brazil.More than a year after supporters of right-wing former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro ransacked government buildings to express their fury over his election loss, the commission’s two co-chairs are fighting over an attempt to give the Bolsonaro crowd a hearing to air their grievances. It’s a dispute partly about Brazil, and partly about Bolsanaro’s like-minded friend, former President Donald Trump. The Republican co-chair, Rep. Chris Smith of New Jersey, proposed holding the hearing earlier this month, billing it as exploring “democracy, freedom and the rule of law in Brazil,” according to a draft announcement I obtained. Smith insists that he is trying to help Brazilians unjustly persecuted — or prosecuted, if you prefer — by a government whose tactics in the wake of the riots have, in fairness, drawn widespread concerns. But the Democratic co-chair, Rep. Jim McGovern of Massachusetts, saw something more sinister at play and refused to permit the hearing. He and his team point to the parallels between the Jan. 8, 2023, Brazilian insurrection and the one led by Trump supporters in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021.
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The worries come as a similar bipartisan institution, the Helsinki Commission — an independent government body that includes lawmakers — is experiencing its own internal rifts while facing hostility from some in the MAGA wing of the GOP. Such disputes bode poorly for U.S. national security. Congress already is increasingly unable to make important foreign policy decisions — from confirming ambassadors to sending military aid to Ukraine — because of political polarization. When even panels such as Lantos, which, relatively speaking, has little actual power, face partisan flare-ups, it’s another sign of the deep impairment.