Partisanship

In “Partisanship and the President’s Quest for Votes on the Floor of Congress,” the authors, Richard Fleisher and John R. Bond, explore how and to what extent partisanship has changed in Congress from the mid-1950s to the mid-1990s. According to the authors, partisanship has increased from the mid-1950s to the mid-1990s, which has made it harder for presidents to get their preferred legislation passed. This change in partisanship within the two parties has come about primarily due to the progressive dwindling of members (“cross pressured” members) who hold views that conflict with their party’s base (or average member). Parties have become more cohesive units as a result of this substantial decrease of liberal republicans and conservative democrats. …show more content…
This unity translates into members voting for legislation that is supported by the majority of the party. Compromise between parties in a highly partisan political environment is difficult. Congress reinforces this partisan environment by awarding coveted positions, such as committee chairmanships, to members who hold views that are consistent with the party’s base. As a way to hold committee chairs accountable and to promote party unity, both parties instituted reforms “that made committee chairs subject to election by secret ballot,” which made it paramount for “committee chairs to be more responsive to the wishes of the caucus” (164).
Fleisher and Bond measure partisanship of the parties by reviewing how members of Congress voted in regards to the presidents preferred legislation. They do this by looking at the percentage of members of a president’s party who voted in favor of his preferred legislation along with the percentage of votes from the opposition party that supported the president’s preferred legislation. The data shows that votes in support of a president by members of his party has increased while votes in support from the opposition party has decreased during the mid-1950s to the …show more content…
The Affordable Care Act, also colloquially known as Obamacare, was such a polarizing bill that no Republican member of the House voted for it. This unity among House Republicans can be seen as proof that cross pressured members do not exist within the Republican Party. Democrats, on the other hand, had a number of members who were hesitant to vote for the legislation, which suggests that cross pressured members still have a presence on the Democratic side. Senate Republicans’ refusal to hold hearings on Merrick Garland, the president’s Supreme Court nominee, can also serve as an example as to how partisanship has increased since 1996. It has been a custom for a President’s judicial nominees to be given a vote. The low productivity rate of Congress also suggests increased partisanship. According to Drew DeSilver of Pew Research Center, the 113th Congress passed 296 laws compared to the 112th’s 283, 111th’s 383, 110th’s 460, 109th’s 482, and 108th’s 498 (DeSilver, 2014). This trend towards a lower passage rate for bills suggests less of a tendency for the two parties to come together and compromise. This increase in partisanship since 1996 suggests that the authors’ claim that “defections continue to occur with considerable frequency” (183) does not hold true

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