Congressional Democrats Solidify Opposition to Bush in 2005

01/22/2006

by Jonathan Singer
myDD.com

Over the course of 2005, Congressional Democrats took a number of steps that were not popular among the progessive community, including caving on the bankruptcy bill, failing to stand up to the Republicans over Terri Schiavo, and acceding to the nomination of John Roberts. Moreover, on multiple occasions, Democrats were dealt strategic defeats on key measures, like Medicaid cuts and CAFTA.

A new vote analyisis by Congressional Quarterly paints Congressional Democrats’ actions in 2005 in a different light, however. Using metrics such as party unity and rate of opposition to measures favored by President Bush, the CQ analysis found that Democrats were more unified in their opposition to Republicans than nearly any other point in the last fifty years—and these numbers don’t even include the Democrats’ successful effort to save Social Security from the President’s partial privatization plan.

In the January 9 issue of CQ Weekly, Isaiah J. Poole analyzes the 46 House votes and 45 Senate votes upon which President Bush had staked out a position. Poole finds President Bush’s success rate on these votes to have been 78 percent, which while high by historical standards is low compared with Bush’s first term and Clinton’s first two years (the last point at which the President and the leadership of both Houses of Congress were from the same party). Looking further into the votes, Poole writes,

Democrats, meanwhile, sided with Bush less than ever last year, supporting his position 38 percent of the time in the Senate and 24 percent of the time in the House. During 2002, Bush’s best year among Democrats, his Senate average support score was 71 percent and in the House it was 32 percent on votes where he took a position.

While a 38 percent rate of Democratic support is still too high—it is unlikely that Republicans would give such deference to a Democratic President in a similar situation—it is still a vast improvement from the 71 percent mark in 2002. Indeed, Democratic leader Harry Reid has been more effective than his predecessor Tom Daschle in marshalling opposition to the Republicans.

In the same issue of CQ Weekly, Martin Kady II takes a look at party unity scores (the percentage of the time that members of a caucus vote with their colleagues) and finds the Democrats in both chambers similarly improving.

In 2005, Democratic unity in the House reached a record 88 percent, besting the previous high of 87 percent in 2003. What’s more, this number was only slightly below the Republican unity score of 90 percent. Democrats were similarly unified in the Senate, also posting an 88 percent party unity score—a significant improvement from the 83 percent score just one year earlier. Republicans also scored 88 percent in 2005, though this was a noticeable drop from 90 percent in 2004 and 94 percent in 2005. Kady explains that there were real effects to the increased unity within the Democratic ranks.

[R]ising Democratic unity has forced the majority Republicans to work harder to win—and resulted in a few high-profile GOP defeats that also jeopardized the legislative agenda of President Bush.

An utter lack of Democratic support, for example, required Republican leaders to twist arms and make promises to preserve very narrow victories in both chambers on a spending cut bill that still must survive one more test in the House early this year. Likewise, most Democrats refused to vote for the Central American Free Trade Agreement—the centerpiece of Bush’s trade agenda—leaving Republicans to scramble to win sufficient support from within their own ranks. And when House Democrats held tighter than the Republicans on a bill to permit federally financed medical research using embryonic stem cells, the GOP and the president both suffered a loss.

These numbers all raise a very important point: when unified, the Democrats can make it extremely difficult for the Republican Party to govern. What’s more, when unified, the Democrats can force Republicans who represent competitive districts to vote contrary to the wishes of their constituents (for example on the CAFTA vote), which very likely reap benefits for the Democrats in November. Finally, although the Democrats can and and probably should still increase their rate of opposition to President Bush on key measures from the 38 percent mark in the Senate and the 24 percent mark in the House, they have proved able to scuttle major Republican initiatives that are particularly abhorrent to Democratic voters (drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve, for example, or the partial privatization of Social Security). 2005 might not have been the worst year for Democrats, after all. By the way, if you have the chance to check out this issue of CQ Weekly at your local public library or elsewhere, I would highly recommend it, as there is quite a bit more data and analysis available.

http://www.mydd.com/story/2006/1/21/175136/265