Visualizing the Senate’s Unusual Bipartisan Vote on the Coronavirus Response Act
Could a new global enemy bringing us closer together?
I’ve always appreciated this visualization by Renzo Lucioni, showing the rise of political polarization in senate voting patterns. You can read about it in The Economist, and watch an animated version here, but here’s the short summary:
It’s been suggested that the Cold War was a time of American unification, forcing us to “focus on a powerful and cohesive external threat.” So, could the COVID-19 pandemic provide a similar “cohesive threat” and lead to more bipartisan voting this year? Like most COVID-related questions, the answer is “we don’t know yet, we’ll have to wait.”
Nonetheless, I looked for early signs, using GovTrack data and some starter code from Renzo Lucioni (my final code is available here as a gist).
Senate Voting Patterns in 2020
First, let’s set a baseline by looking at some votes early in the year. Here is a voting snapshot for a judge nomination to the Federal Claims Court:
No democrats voted in favor of the nomination. This also happened for resolution 483, which detailed some partisan impeachment-related procedures:
And now, let’s look at the year’s most familiar vote, on the articles of impeachment against the president. On Article I, Abuse of Power, you can spot Mitt Romney flying solo on the republican side (more info from GovTrack here):
And on Article II, Obstruction of Congress (more info from GovTrack here):
Voting Patterns on the Coronavirus Response Act?
And now, here’s the recent vote on H.R. 6201, also known as the Families First Coronavirus Response Act:
And let’s compare it directly with some other votes:
That’s quite the bipartisan vote! Like I said early on, it will take some time to see whether bipartisan trends continue. Also, it’s not quite as rosy if you look at some of the amendments. For example, here’s a polarized vote on providing state-administered unemployment (GovTrack details here):
And here’s another polarized vote on the amendment to provide paid sick time (GovTrack details here):
Even with these polarizing amendments, it’s encouraging to see congress step up and deliver a meaningful bipartisan bill. Stay tuned to see if they keep it up!
