voteview blog

Below we use Optimal Classification (OC) in R to plot the Senate’s 54-46 vote to reject an amendment by Senators Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Pat Toomey (R-PA) that would require background checks for gun purchases with exemptions for non-commercial firearm sales among family and friends.

Four Democrats (Senators Max Baucus (D-MT), Mark Begich (D-AK), Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND), and Mark Pryor (D-AR)) crossed party lines to vote Nay on the amendment, while Four Republicans (Senators Senators Susan Collins (R-ME), Mark Kirk (R-IL), John McCain (R-AZ), and Pat Toomey (R-PA)) voted Yea. Majority Leader Senator Harry Reid (D-NV) voted Nay, but only as a procedural measure so that he can bring the proposal back to the floor for another vote.

In the second plot we merge this vote with the Senate’s April 11 vote to invoke cloture and end debate on the bill. We see that the cutting lines (that divide spatially predicted Yea votes from spatially predicted Nay votes) from the two votes form three regions in the ideological space: those on the left who voted Yea both times, those (mostly moderate Republicans) who voted Yea on cloture but Nay on the Manchin-Toomey amendment, and those on the right who voted Nay both times.

From a spatial perspective, if the next effort to enact mandatory background checks for gun purchases is to be successful, proponents will likely need to pick up the five votes from among the fifteen Yea/Nay Senators we plot in black.

On the Democratic side, this includes Senators Max Baucus (D-MT) and Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND), though they seem unlikely to flip (see here and here), and Senator Baucus is facing re-election next year. The states represented by several of the thirteen Yea/Nay Republican Senators have also been included in New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s ad blitz on gun control. This is entirely consistent with a spatial analysis of voting patterns on the issue, as most of these Senators (for example, Georgia Republican Senators Saxby Chambliss and Johny Isakson) are within a spatial region that indicates they have the highest propensity to switch in support of the bill. Of course, these Senators are only likely to vote Yea relative to the most conservative contingent of the Senate Republican caucus.

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As a technical note, we are able to plot members of the 113th Senate so early in the new Congress by combining the roll call voting records of returning members in the 113th Senate with the 103 roll call votes held so far in the 113th Senate. Until more votes are compiled for the freshman members, the estimation of their ideal points will remain somewhat imprecise, but by bridging data from the 112th this problem will not be too severe.

Below we use Optimal Classification (OC) in R to plot the Senate’s 68-31 vote to invoke cloture on a Democratic measure to require universal background checks on gun purchases, although an amendment worked out by Senators Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Pat Toomey (R-PA) would soften this requirement somewhat if adopted.

Below we see that voting patterns on the cloture motion are consistent with Senators’ ideological positions. The sixteen Republicans who crossed over to support cloture are among the more moderate members of their party caucus, while the twenty-nine Republicans who voted Nay (with the exception of moderate Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK)) hold higher (more conservative) first dimension scores. The second dimension, which once tapped heavily into regional differences and was an important predictor of voting on gun control measures, is unimportant in modeling this vote.

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As a technical note, we are able to plot members of the 113th Senate so early in the new Congress by combining the roll call voting records of returning members in the 113th Senate with the 95 roll call votes held so far in the 113th Senate. Until more votes are compiled for the freshman members, the estimation of their ideal points will remain somewhat imprecise, but by bridging data from the 112th this problem will not be too severe.

Below we use Optimal Classification (OC) in R to plot the House’s votes on six budget proposals for 2014. The House voted down the four Democratic budget sand the Republican Study Committee budget, and passed Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R-WI) budget by a 221-207 margin.

The plots below show that voting patterns on the budget votes are quite consistent with legislators’ ideological positions. We array the votes from the most liberal proposal (the Congressional Progressive Caucus budget) to the most conservative proposal (the Republican Study Committee budget) and it is clear the the cutting line that divides predicted Yea votes from predicted Nay votes moves steadily across the ideological spectrum (the first dimension). Note that only a handful (14) of House Democrats did not abstain on the Republican Study Committee budget in an effort to allow the measure to pass the chamber with Republican votes and tie vulnerable Republicans to its more conservative elements.

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Below we also plot the 36 Representatives (30 Democrats and 6 Republicans) who did not support any of the six budgets. This group appears to be mostly composed to the dwindling number of moderates remaining in the chamber: in particular, the moderate (Blue Dog) wing of House Democrats with high second dimensions scores at the top of the plot.

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Below we use Optimal Classification (OC) in R to plot the Senate’s 73-26 vote and the House’s 318-109 vote on a Continuing Resolution that funds government operations through Fiscal Year 2013 (which ends on September 30). The CR preserves the $85 billion in sequester cuts but alters the manner in which they are implemented by agency.

Interestingly enough, opposition to the CR came almost exclusively from Republicans in the Senate (all but one of the 26 Nay votes were Republican, with the exception being Senator Jon Tester (D-MT)), but was concentrated among Democrats in the House (82 House Democrats voted Nay, compared to 27 Republicans). However, in both cases the spatial model does a good job of using MCs’ ideological position to predict vote choice. In particular, House Democrats who voted Nay are among the most liberal members of their caucus (e.g., the Congressional Progressive Caucus, whose co-chairs (Reps. Raúl Grijalva (D-AZ) and Keith Ellison (D-MN) both voted against the CR), and House and Senate Republicans who voted Nay are among the rightward edge of their caucuses.

In the House, the forms something of a “two ends against the middle” pattern in which relative ideological extremists (e.g., Reps. Barbara Lee (D-CA) and Paul Broun (R-GA): the most liberal and most conservative (returning) members of the 112th House) vote on the same side against the remainder of the chamber.

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As a technical note, we are able to plot members of the 113th House and Senate so early in the new Congress by combining the roll call voting records of returning members with the 87 roll call votes held so far in the 113th House and the 44 votes held so far in the 113th Senate. Until more votes are compiled for the freshman members, the estimation of their ideal points will remain somewhat imprecise, but by bridging data from the 112th this problem will not be too severe.

Below we use Optimal Classification (OC) in R to plot the Senate’s 81-16 vote to invoke cloture on the confirmation of John Brennan as CIA Director and its 63-34 vote on confirmation itself. Senator Rand Paul’s (R-KY) talking filibuster of the nomination the day before garnered considerable popular attention.

Sens. Rand Paul (R-KY) and Ted Cruz (R-TX) (who assisted Paul during the filibuster) voted Yea on cloture but Nay on the confirmation, while Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) (also a participant in the filibuster) voted Nay on both motions. The sixteen Republican Senators who opposed cloture and the thirty-one Republican Senators who opposed confirmation are mostly among the most conservative members of the caucus, but this issue is one that does not map very clearly onto the liberal-conservative divide. For instance, three of the Senate’s most liberal members—Sens. Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Jeff Merkley (D-OR), and Bernie Sanders (I-VT)—also voted Nay on confirmation. These particular votes were no doubt complicated by partisan considerations; but at least among the Republican caucus, ideology is a fairly good indicator of position on President Obama’s drone program.

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As a technical note, we are able to plot members of the 113th Senate so early in the new Congress by combining the roll call voting records of returning members in the 113th Senate with the 32 roll call votes held so far in the 113th Senate. Until more votes are compiled for the freshman members, the estimation of their ideal points will remain somewhat imprecise, but by bridging data from the 112th this problem will not be too severe.

Ahead of the start of the sequester tomorrow, below we use Optimal Classification (OC) in R to plot the Senate’s 38-62 vote to invoke cloture on a Republican plan to give the president more discretion in applying the spending cuts and its 51-49 vote to invoke cloture on a Democratic plan to make more limited cuts and increase tax revenues. Both votes failed to meet the 60-vote threshold to bring the proposals themselves to a vote.

Eight Senate Republicans voted against cloture on the Republican proposal, a group that was ideologically mixed between moderate Senators like Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) and very conservative Senators Mike Lee (R-UT) and Rand Paul (R-KY). They eight Republican defectors are also mixed along the second dimension. On the Democratic proposal, four Senate Democrats voted against cloture: three Southern Democrats who face reelection next year (Sens. Kay Hagan (D-NC), Mary Landrieu (R-LA), and Mark Pryor (R-AR)) and Senate Majority Leader Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV), who voted Nay in order to retain his ability to bring the bill back up in the future.

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As a technical note, we are able to plot members of the 113th Senate so early in the new Congress by combining the roll call voting records of returning members in the 113th Senate with the 27 roll call votes held so far in the 113th Senate. Until more votes are compiled for the freshman members, the estimation of their ideal points will remain somewhat imprecise, but by bridging data from the 112th this problem will not be too severe.

Below we use Optimal Classification (OC) in R to plot the House’s 286-138 vote to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA). The vote was in part noteworthy because it marks the third time in the 113th House that the majority Republicans were “rolled” — that is, a bill won passage despite a majority of the majority party voting against it.

House Republicans were also rolled on the Hurricane Sandy relief package, a vote on which Republicans split 49-179 against the measure. The cutting line from the Sandy vote is quite similar to the cutting line from the VAWA vote, with both dividing the most conservative contingent of House Republicans from the rest of the caucus. This intra-party schism also occurs along the second dimension, which we have conjectured may represent an “insider-outsider” divide. Members with low second-dimension scores have been more likely to buck party leadership on a range of votes.

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As a technical note, we are able to plot members of the 113th House so early in the new Congress by combining the roll call voting records of returning members in the 113th House with the 55 roll call votes held so far in the 113th House. Until more votes are compiled for the freshman members, the estimation of their ideal points will remain somewhat imprecise, but by bridging data from the 112th this problem will not be too severe.

Below we use Optimal Classification (OC) in R to plot the Senate’s 71-27 cloture vote and its 58-41 confirmation vote on Former Senator Chuck Hagel (R-NE) for Secretary of Defense. Eighteen Senate Republicans joined all voting Senate Democrats and Independents to invoke cloture on the nomination, and four Republicans — Senators Thad Cochran (R-MS), Richard Shelby (R-AL), Mike Johanns (R-NE), and Rand Paul (R-KY) — crossed over to support confirmation itself.

The cloture vote more clearly divides the most conservative contingent of Senate Republicans from the remainder of the caucus (with only six classification errors), with the confirmation vote occurring essentially on party lines. Below we include separate plots for both votes, but we first show a combined plot that shows Senators’ voting patterns on both votes. Senators can either vote “YY” (Yea on both votes), “YN” (Yea on cloture, Nay on confirmation), “NY” (Nay on cloture, Yea on confirmation), or “NN” (Nay on both votes). As can be seen, the cutting lines from both votes fan out and do a good job of isolating the moderate slice of the Senate Republican caucus: the 15 “YN” voters who supported ending the filibuster on the Hagel nomination but voted Nay on confirmation. One Senator — Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) — voted the reverse (“NY”), an odd pairing that may be a product of political maneuvering.

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As a technical note, we are able to plot members of the 113th Senate so early in the new Congress by combining the roll call voting records of returning members in the 113th Senate with the 21 roll call votes held so far in the 113th Senate. Until more votes are compiled for the freshman members, the estimation of their ideal points will remain somewhat imprecise, but by bridging data from the 112th this problem will not be too severe.