In Donald J. Trump’s Election Night acceptance speech he said, “It is time to bind the wounds of division.” Let’s start with Congress.

Democrats remember the edict from Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., on the evening of Barack Obama’s 2009 inauguration to make Obama a one-term president by obstructing his agenda. This blatant divisiveness lasted, at the public’s expense, for eight long years. Democrats must not emulate McConnell’s immature act of obstructionism with President Trump.

We must recognize that Congress (not the president) initiates and passes laws and budget appropriations before a president can approve or veto legislation and authorize expenditures.

To “bind the wounds of division,” I propose that every Iowa registered voter contact Sens. Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst and Reps. Rod Blum, Steven King, Dave Loebsack, and David Young and insist they work during the 115th and 116th Congress with Trump and their across-the-aisle counterparts in the spirit of cooperation, bipartisanship, decency, and respect.

With our 535 elected representatives earnestly cooperating and actually working across the aisle, Trump’s legacy as the 45th president could go down as the “Era of Bipartisan Compromise.” Please join me in holding Grassley, Ernst, Blum, Loebsack, Young, and King accountable to bipartisanship behavior and let’s pledge to “kick the bums out” should they behave in an unreasonable, childish, self-centered, and obstructionist manner.

—By Steve Corbin