Editorial: Disaster aid should be non-partisan

A lot of attention goes to partisanship and bipartisanship.

What do these groups agree on? What can bring both sides together? What drives them apart?

There is less attention paid to the things that don’t have a side.

Regardless of party affiliation, Pittsburghers can be depended upon to agree that Heinz ketchup is better than Hunt’s, that French fries are an appropriate sandwich and salad topping and that they have a low opinion of certain Philadelphia-based sports teams.

You know, universal truths.

Across the country, and across political lines, one of those truths has always been that partisanship ends when the water rises. Natural disasters don’t care who registered for what party.

Hurricanes haven’t cared about whether Puerto Rico or Louisiana or Texas or New Jersey were red states or blue states. They ripped them apart all the same. The tornadoes that sliced through Ohio didn’t ask for a voter registration card. The wildfires that run roughshod over California don’t avoid the homes of certain owners.

And because Mother Nature is an equal opportunity destroyer, we have to be just as politically colorblind in return.

Throwing a life preserver to a community or a state or an island drowning in the wake of tragedy isn’t something to be done because we agree with them. We do it because America is a boat we are all in together, and any of us could be in the same position as the wind shifts or the earth rumbles.

And that is why a Congress whose chambers can agree on almost nothing, and whose aisles are practically demilitarized zones, came together to create a $19.1 billion disaster aid package. It was a unicorn — legislation with the approval of President Trump, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

The approval came hard. It took months. There was gridlock. There was negotiation. Even universal truths aren’t easy anymore. But what could have been a House rubber stamp of the Senate’s concessions didn’t happen Friday because of Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, whose state would receive money in the package.

On Tuesday, they tried again. This time there were two votes against. Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., called voting without debate “legislative malpractice.”

But there has been debate. Months of debate. People have struggled and floundered, and yes, at least in Puerto Rico, people have died while trying to recover. Partisanship and arguing created roadblocks where there should have been express lanes, and it just happened again.

A third vote is planned this week, and the universal truth is these are real people who need real help, come hell or high water.