As awful as the current Congress is, it would be an overstatement to argue that lawmakers haven’t passed anything of note. As we discussed earlier, NBC News reported overnight on the House passing a $78 billion tax package that includes an expansion of the child tax credit.
The Republican-led House passed the bipartisan measure 357-70, using a fast-track process that requires a two-thirds majority. The legislation received broad support from each party: 169 Republicans and 188 Democrats voted for it, while 47 Republicans and 23 Democrats voted against it.
The fate of the legislation in the Senate is certainly of interest, but so too are the details of the House vote: The compromise measure on tax policy cleared the lower chamber with bipartisan support, but Democratic votes outnumbered Republican votes, despite the fact that there’s a GOP majority in the House, and despite the fact that the bill enjoyed the support of Republican leaders.
The fact that the Democratic minority did the legislative heavy lifting was not unusual. On the contrary, this keeps happening.
As 2023 came to an end, and members of Congress wrapped up their work on Capitol Hill, Axios highlighted an underappreciated pattern: “Republicans may hold the House majority, but Democratic yeas outnumbered GOP votes on every major bill that landed on President Biden’s desk this year.”
One month into 2024, the pattern remains intact. Two weeks ago, a bill to prevent a partial government shutdown cleared the House with 314 votes, but most of those votes — 207 — came from the House Democratic minority. Or put another way, GOP leaders, eager to avoid a crisis of their own making, relied on Democrats to govern.
On the tax package, the partisan split was narrower, but a majority of the votes, once again, came from the chamber’s Democratic minority.
The circumstances are becoming routine. Last September, to prevent a government shutdown, it was Democrats who provided most of the votes. Two months…
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