Last Thursday, the Senate killed Pres. Bush's compromise immigration package. The "amnesty bill" died just 14 votes short of cloture. At first glance, the breakdown was bipartisan with 15 Democrats opposed to and 12 Republicans in favor of "amnesty."
One, the "left" did not kill this proposal. Two, the outcome was forseeable.
Last Thursday, the Senate killed Pres. Bush's compromise immigration package. The "amnesty bill" died just 14 votes short of cloture. At first glance, the breakdown was bipartisan with 15 Democrats opposed to and 12 Republicans in favor of "amnesty."
I say "amnesty bill" because that's how, in populist circles, it became known. In reality, the outcome was both foreseeable and partisan.
The progressive-populist divide both cross-cuts and mirrors the Democratic-Republican divide. Fiscally conservative progressives will champion socially liberal causes, and populists will oppose, say, immigrant amnesty bills and gay marriage. To the extent that Senate seats are statewide offices, the particularity of state parties becomes salient. But when we talk about the presidency and U.S. House elections since 1994, we're talking about national politics. We're talking about district partisanship. When we talk about gay marriage or immigrant amnesty in the run-up to a presidential election, we're talking about issues that make or break the national parties.
When Democrats lost hold of the Solid (read: populist) South, they lost their edge in U.S. House elections. America entered a 50/50 world of wedge issues, microtargeting, swing states, swing districts and swing voters. District partisanship is simply a presidential candidate's share of the vote in a given congressional district (or state, for purposes of this analysis). By telling us by how much (s)he performed relative to his/her national vote share in a given jurisdiction, district partisanship tells us roughly how Republican or Democratic that jurisdiction is.
The Post is good enough to let us look at vote breakdowns by party, state, region, boomer status, gender... even astrological sign. It should summarize votes by district partisanship, too.
Amnesty bill vote by party
Yes: 33 D, 12 R, 1 I
No: 15 D, 37 R, 1 I
Looking at the cloture vote by party, Democrats generally favored the bill, and Republicans generally opposed it. But only by about 2-to-1 on either side.
Amnesty bill vote by district partisanship
Yes: 32 D partisanship, 14 R partisanship
No: 6 D partisanship, 47 R partisanship
Of 13 votes against the bill by Democratic Senators, only four came from states of Democratic partisanships. Of those four, two (NM and OH) were within less than a point of Republican partisanship.
The so-called left does not really share responsibility for killing this bill. The Democrats who helped quash it overwhelmingly represent conservative electorates.
Moreover, the partisanship analysis underscores a fundamental problem for the progressive agenda. To control the Senate, Democrats need to control seats in fundamentally populist states (i.e. Republican-leaning in presidential elections).