Norm OrnsteinMost members of Minnesota’s congressional delegation have voted with the their party more than 90 percent of the time, and they have good company: nearly three-quarters of all members of Congress. Congressional scholar Norm Ornstein said such party loyalty is certainly nothing new, but it’s gotten worse as the two parties have grown further apart.
“It’s not new here, but it’s sharply greater now because so many votes have become party-line and polarized,” Ornstein said. “There is no overlap [ideologically] in the Senate and almost no overlap in the House between the parties.”
Among Minnesotans, Republican Rep. John Kline (97 percent) and Democratic Sen. Al Franken (96 percent) vote with their parties most frequently, according to the Washington Post’s 112th Congress vote tracker.
The rest of the delegation isn’t far behind: Rep. Betty McCollum (D) sides with her party 94 percent of the time; Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D) and Reps. Keith Ellison (D) and Erik Paulsen (R), 93 percent; and Reps. Michele Bachmann and Chip Cravaack vote with Republicans 92 percent of the time.
The only outliers are Democratic Rep. Tim Walz (88 percent), and to a much greater extent, Rep. Collin Peterson, one of Congress’s most moderate Democrats, who sides with his party just 57 percent of the time.
When they do break with their parties, Walz and Peterson tend to move toward the middle, at least on major pieces of legislation. Peterson said he does so because he fashions himself as fiscal watchdog (he’s a founding member of the fiscally conservative Blue Dog Democrat Coalition) and because it’s what his district demands.
“I do what I think my district wants me to do,” he said. “That’s the main thing.”
Party loyalty
Ornstein said rigid party loyalty is born from the increasing desire to please the politically active and hyper-partisan voters in members’ districts, the ones who vote in primaries and attend endorsing conventions, and do the lion’s share of the work to nominate their party’s ideological standard-bearer.
“In a lot of these districts, they’re safe enough that the only thing that really matters is the primary,” Ornstein said.
Party loyalty is important to those votes, but so ideological purity, and thus, when members break ranks, they often do so because a bill doesn’t go far enough to fit their (and their constituents’) philosophies. Even if a bill is agreeable to moderates on both sides of the aisle, the pressure to please partisan voters can lead to fractured ranks on the outside edges of both the Democratic and Republican parties.
And while Walz and Peterson may break toward the middle, most Minnesotans split with their parties on the biggest issues of the day by moving further toward the right or the left.
Bachmann, for example, may be the most conservative member of the congressional delegation, and when she’s broken with her party, she does so because she feels House Republicans haven’t moved far enough to the right. Take the debt limit debate last summer: she vowed to never vote to raise the debt ceiling unless Republicans were able to defund the Affordable Care Act, an option that was never on the table.
“Before I vote on any piece of legislation, I always ask three key questions,” she said in a statement. “First, as a proud representative of Minnesota’s 6th District, I ask whether it acts in the best interest of the people in my district. Second, as a fiscal conservative, I ask whether it cuts the deficit and decreases the size and scope of government bureaucracy. Third, as a constitutional conservative, I ask whether the legislation is constitutional.”
Votes against the party
On the other side, when members like McCollum and Ellison vote against their party, they do so because they feel the end product, often major bills that are negotiated between Republicans and Democrats, is too conservative.
Ellison, for example, has worked with the Congressional Progressive Caucus to propose more liberal alternative plans to House budget resolutions, the debt deal and, just last week, a solution to the so-called “fiscal cliff” of spending cuts and tax increases set to go into effect at the in 2013. The plan has a lot of components palatable to Democrats — increased taxes, protections for Medicare and Medicaid spending, defense spending cuts, etc. — but it’s unlikely to look like whatever final plan Congress puts together this winter, let alone become law.
“What we’re doing is reframing the debate,” he said at a Wednesday press conference. “We don’t want the debate to be Bowles-Simpson or Ryan. The debate is much broader than that, but any deal needs to include these four principles.”
Here’s a look at how the Minnesota delegation voted on the some of the biggest issues Congress considered this term (based on what the Washington Post considered to be “key votes” since January 2011). We’ll tell you how a member voted, whether it was the way their party voted and, in many cases, let them explain why they broke ranks — if they did at all.
We need and deserve…
Just one visionary, just one wise person, just one non-self interested representative, just one brave soul to speak up for humans needs over the demands of inhuman “interests” that now dominate our national agenda. At the moment we remain needful, and by the look of things we’ll remain so.
Political cowards one and all
America hasn’t become great through the work of political cowards. It was politicians who were willing to work together and compromise that moved our country forward. There is no place for political cowards in our system. We have seen what uncompromising positions bring the people the politicians were elected to serve. It brings nothing but political gridlock. Most often there are extremely weak reasons for not voting for one thing or another. Amazingly if politicians would work together and compromise both sides would feel like they win. Congress and the state legislature should work in a bipartisan manner to cut their own pay for non-performance. That is one of the real weaknesses in our system. The politician’s have it made because they won’t legislate against themselves, but they most definitely should.
Silly to call them all cowards
I would expect that the majority of members of a group would agree with a majority of that philosophy. What becomes problematic and immpossible to believe is that no one in the group disagrees.
In one party, dissension is obviously allowed. One party there is zero dissension.
One party values strength through diversity. One party values strength through purity.
Cowardice only comes into play when you see the zero dissension of the Republican party.
Political cowards one and all.
It is cowardice when both party’s only vote party line which says neither party has compromise on their mind. Each side proposes, but makes sure there is a poison pill contained in their proposal. This way they know they won’t have to deal with the other party. Both sides look at their jobs as far more important moving the country forward. Political cowards!
Rep. Bachmann has it backwards, again.
Her first concern should be how a bill comports with both the letter and the spirit of the Constitution, although I’m certain that she and I would disagree on its application in most instances. Her second concern, and one she fails to mention at all, should be whether the bill is in the best interests of the people of this country, not simply her district. Once she’s determined these things, she’s free to consider other aspects, though I’d hope that every member of Congress would be capable of stopping with the two I’ve mentioned on occasion.
That’s interesting
Amy Klobuchar votes more in lockstep with her party (93%) than does the alleged ideologue Bachmann at 92%.
Will that change the rhetoric around here about who’s the rigid party line voter? Nope.
It’s not a useful metric
I think voting party line in itself isn’t a very useful metric because a) when the house is closely split voting as a bloc is the only chance of getting legislation passed and b) it really depends upon the content of the legislation, its degree of adherence to ideology as opposed to pragmatism. If 90 percent of Democrats never voted to reduce the budget of an entitlement or 90 percent of the GOP never voted to raise a tax, that would be a more useful measurement. Though I bet you the latter is more true than the former.
I think talking about about people’s percentage of votes for the party line is a convenient way to cast global blame on a problem that stems from the calcification of the political right into obstruction and posturing in the service of consolidating wealth at the top. As a liberal I would I would be happy to see a liberal vote for sensible tax reform and consolidation of redundant services yet those votes aren’t taken. Instead we are supposed to praise the crossing of the aisle by Amy Klobuchar because she is gutting the oversight of medical devices in order to please a large employer in the state. We are supposed to praise Tim Walz for voting to against the ending of the Bush tax cuts for the very rich, as he did last week, because it contained a provision that would estate tax farms worth one million plus at — wait for it — Clinton era rates. I would offer examples of the GOP making meaningless efforts to cross the aisle but I am not aware of any.