Vice Chairman’s Assessment
Democratic Leadership Dominates 2010 Congressional Voting
Most Polarized and Liberal Ever
By Dr. Donald J. Devine
ACU Vice Chairman
Majority Leader Harry Reid and Speaker Nancy Pelosi rode their dominating majorities to even greater heights of liberalism in the 2010 Congress, more than in any year since their takeover of Congress in 2006.
The Democratic record was impressive: an historic government takeover of health care after 60 years of trying, what President Barack Obama called “the toughest financial reform since the Great Depression,” the largest expenditures on “stimulus” spending ever, expansion of greenhouse gas regulation, and a so-called Food Safety Act to force farmers and processors to meet impossibly severe regulatory standards. All of these programs and more were passed last year on a split vote, highly partisan basis. The “transformational” nature of the Democratic agenda even forced Republicans to be more united in their voting while in the minority.
This radical agenda was achieved by wide usage of aggressive legislative tactics. Senate Leader Reed invoked the notorious “filling the amendment tree” procedure denying Republicans the ability to offer amendments more than 40 times, more than any time in history. Speaker Pelosi likewise routinely used “closed rules” to deny amendments in the House. Even in the normally pro-forma “lame duck” session after Democrats were repudiated by the voters, their leaders were able to run roughshod over the minority and with remarkable party unity pass additional major legislation
As in the Congresses of 2008 and 2009, an absolute majority of Senators and Members of the House of Representatives scored as liberal in their voting on the major ideological issues of the day. An agenda that looked spent at the end of 2009 with the election of a Republican in liberal Massachusetts and two Republican governors in previously Democratic states had been revived by grit, determination and party discipline on the part of the president and his two top Congressional leaders. This party unity should make Republicans envious compared to their years of flaccid control when they could boast of majorities in Congress.
In 2010, a record 240 House Members earned a liberal rating – an ACU conservatism score of 20 or less—up from 220 in 2008 and even more than last year’s previous record high of 236, an increase from only 144 liberal members as recently as 2006. No House Republican rated a liberal designation in this session of Congress. In a year characterized by Democratic members following President Obama’s leftist agenda, the number of those earning a perfect liberalism score of zero even topped last year’s record 143 members. In 2010 the number of down-the-line liberal members increased by an impressive 58 more members, to a new record 150 liberal Congressmen.
The number of House Republicans scoring an ACU rating of 80% or higher—that is voting as conservatives—went up from 154 members rating conservative in 2009 to 161 last year. Those earning a perfect conservative rating of 100% increased from 56 members in 2009 to 77 in 2010. The lowest ranking Republicans were Mike Castle (DE) and Charles Djou (HI) who both scored an anemic 38% rating. The highest scoring Democrat was Bobby Bright (AL) with a rating of 58%, down from 72% the year before.
Voting in the Senate remained at the high liberal levels of 2009, with the number of perfect progressive scores increasing from 24 to 28 Senators. The total number of liberals was about the same, declining only marginally from 53 to 52 Senators, which number increased from only 40 in 2006, the last year Republicans were in control. Those earning a perfect liberal rating included Thomas Carper of Delaware, Sherrod Brown of Ohio, Barbara Boxer of California, Al Franken of Minnesota, Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, Carl Levin of Michigan, and Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania. The least liberal Democrats were Ben Nelson (NE) with a 48% rating and Blanche Lincoln (AR) at 46%.
Senators who scored 80% conservative or better, all Republicans, increased marginally from 33 the previous year to 34 conservatives in 2010. The number with perfect 100% conservative ratings increased from ten in 2009 to a dozen in 2010: Sam Brownbeck (KS), John Barrasso (WY), Saxby Chambliss (GA), Tom Coburn (OK), John Cornyn (TX), Mike Crapo (ID), Jim DeMint (SC), Orrin Hatch (UT), John McCain (AZ), James Risch (ID), Jeff Sessions (AL) and John Thune (SD). The least conservative Republicans were Maine’s Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe at 64% and George Voinovich (OH) the lowest at a 63% rating.
As successful as the Democrats were, their ambitious record of accomplishment was rejected by voters in the November election. Legislative success turned to be a pyrrhic victory as Democrats lost an historic 63 seats in the House and six seats in the Senate. Majority House control passed to the Republicans and the number of Senate gains would deny Democrats the 60 votes needed to override filibusters. The Republicans gained 720 state legislative seats, the largest number since before Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal.
While President Obama retains his veto and the Democrats still have majority control of the Senate, it is clear that the transformational phase of the Obama period has passed. Once voters saw what the Democratic agenda really was, they revolted against it. The lingering economic effects of the Great Recession hurt Democratic chances but something more profound had taken place too. A liberal Congress had been granted all of the power it desired and its program failed, very much including the old Keynesian nostrums about spending the nation into prosperity.
The fact is old 1930s Democratic liberalism did not work. The likely result over the next two years will be gridlock, with each party honing its program awaiting matters to be settled more decisively by the voters in 2012. In the meantime, liberals can celebrate 2010 as the most productive for their agenda since the assassination of John Kennedy produced equally large Democratic Congressional majorities. Republicans can cheer that they have been given another chance and take hope from the fact that they recovered massively in the wake of the failures of that earlier Great Society program.
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