Tax Lawyer's Blog

As expected, this morning the Senate passed its healthcare reform bill on a 60-39 strict party line vote. Here’s the line score:

• Healthcare Reform Act of 2009 – 0% Republicans and 100% Democrats

Compare this to the bipartisan “yea” votes of other historic pieces of U.S. legislation:

[Sources: I found these vote tallies mostly from official government sources. In those few cases where the tallies did not come from a respected government site, I found at least one corroborating source.]

1. Social Security Act of 1935 - 64% of Republicans and 87% of Democrats
2. Taft-Hartley Act of 1947 (override vote of Truman veto) - 99% of Republicans and 45% of Democrats
3. Civil  Rights Act of 1964 - 82% of Republicans and 69% of Democrats
4. Voting Rights Act of 1965 – 97% of Republicans and 74% of Democrats
5. Truth in Lending Act of 1969 – 83% of Republicans and 93% of Democrats
6. Clean Air Act of 1970 – 100% of Republicans and 100% of Democrats
7. Tax Reform Act of 1986 – 100% of Republicans and 97% of Democrats
8. Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 - 79% of Republicans and 100% of Democrats
9. North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) of 1993 (ratification vote¹) -  79% of Republicans 50% of Democrat
10. No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 - 87% of Republicans and 98% of Democrats

The extremely bipartsan passage of healthcare reform is certainly change, but it is far from the kind of change President Obama exhorted us to believe in during his presidential campaign.

I have two questions for readers:

1. Does it bother you that the Senate has passed legislation that will restructure 16% of the U.S. economy without any support from the Republican side of the aisle?
2. Do you know of any major legislation passed by the Senate in the last 100 years with this level of partisanship? 

¹ NAFTA was never ratified as a treaty. The Senate voted 61 to 38 to ratify, but this was short of the 2/3 majority required.

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