Overwhelming support for Health Care Reform

by: FearItself

Tue Dec 22, 2009 at 00:40

This project was inspired by the insipid yearning for "broad bipartisan support" expressed by DC insider fogeys like Broder, Gergen, and their ilk. The most powerful answer to their mewling, I think, is this: health care reform obviously enjoys broad-based support, since the senators who oppose it, all of them Republicans, were elected by half as many voters as the senators who support it. Of course, the same retort will work for any party-line vote in this Congress, but I think it might be useful to be able to point to the actual numbers.

Another strong answer to the same argument, of course, is that the Democratic caucus includes not only Democrats, but also Independents. Since one of those Independents (Moldy Joe Lieberman) wields more leverage over the content of legislation than the majority of the Democratic party, I think any legislation that gets his vote should be considered "bipartisan."

Anyway, the complete Senate vote table is on the flip.

The table below shows the total number of votes actually received by members of each caucus in the U.S. Senate. Numbers come from CNN.com's election results pages for 2004, 2006, and 2008.
The original Microsoft Excel spreadsheet is available here at Google Docs

Notes:
*Mark Pryor ran unopposed. His vote total is the total number of votes cast in the Arkansas Presidential race that year.
*Michael Bennett, Edward Kaufman, Roland Burris, Paul Kirk, Kirsten Gillibrand, and George Lemieux were all appointed rather than elected. Their "vote totals" are equal to 50% of the total number of votes cast for all Senate candidates in the election in which their predecessor was chosen. This method is designed to account for the voters in those states without giving the sitting senator the same weight of popular support his/her (generally much more famous and accomplished) predecessor enjoyed.