In our chapters on political parties and Congress, we discuss party polarization on Capitol Hill. In
The New York Post, Professor Daniel
DiSalvo points out that a party-line vote on health care reform would be a departure from congressional norms. Since the Second World War, most landmark laws have passed with significant bipartisan support:
For example, the 1991 Civil Rights Act passed the House 381-38 and the
Senate 93-5. Other important laws passed by similar margins, including the
Landrum-Griffin labor law of 1959, the
Clean Air Act of 1969 and the American with Disabilities Act of 1989. Indeed, 88 percent of the 352 standard legislative enactments from 1947 to 2006 passed with near-unanimity or some broad bipartisan coalition.
...
Since
World War II, only three highly polarized final-passage votes have occurred on such high-profile and historically consequential laws: the Clinton budget package (1993), the Bush tax cuts (2001) and the Medicare prescription-drug benefit for seniors (2003). Yet even on those close votes, 12 Senate Democrats and 28 House Democrats voted for the Bush tax cuts and 11 Senate Democrats and 16 House Democrats voted for Medicare reform. Without those votes from the opposition, neither measure would've passed.
Only Clinton's first budget package passed without a single
GOP vote.
The Clinton example suggests political danger for the administration. The vote proved very unpopular and contributed to the GOP takeover of Congress in 1994.
