When it comes to legislation or rules I always see that bills are unanimously shot down or rammed through or upheld by Republicans where Democrats always have have internal dissent. How are the Repubs able to make sure everybody toes the party line?

30 comments

  1. Your premise is not based in fact

    See the votes here, keep in mind the Democrats are in power right now which means their bills will be the ones which are more likely to be voted on. Democrats also have a majority so individuals can feel free to vote against their party with a bill still passing. It’s a way of saving face if you are in an area that has lots of republicans.
    https://clerk.house.gov/Votes

  3. I think you’re mistaken in assuming that democrats are less consistently voting as a bloc. The only real outliers recently have been Manchin/Sinema and The Squad

  4. It’s not always but they tend to vote as a bloc

    They agree upon it in advance and then follow thru

  6. The Republicans have factions as well and they don’t always get along.

    A lot of the wheeling and dealing in legislative bodies is done in caucus away from the public’s eye so you aren’t necessarily privy to those type of inner-party arguments unless you yourself are active in politics.

  7. First, should not use “Repubs” if you are trying to be serious.

    Second, there is also members that break ranks from the party on a multitude of bills; your premise is wrong.

  8. Do you mean at the state level? The federal level? Both?

    And any examples?

  10. Did you do an analysis of all bills that are voted on to come to this premise?

    Try looking up votes in the house and senate and you will see it is not as you describe.

  11. They don’t. You think this is the case because of how our media works. Democrats and Republicans both vote in lock step some of the time especially when a bill violates a pillar of their party platform.

    That is accomplished mostly by the fact that if the party doesn’t want you there, they can make sure you don’t get elected in the next cycle. There are only a few wild cards. So far Manchin (D) has been a big liability for Democrats and derailed multiple bills by vowing to vote with Republicans. He is sort of a special case.

  13. Not based in fact. Republicans have a variety of opinions they discuss with eachother. Whats usually the reason for consensus on shooting down bills in the house, is bills presented while promising one thing at face value, have enough loosely related or completely unrelated tag-ons attached to them that the public usually doesn’t find out about. They’re usually bad enough that the majority or totality of the Republicans in congress agree that the cons outweigh the pros of the bill, and agree to shoot down the bill or push for trimming those additional bits off, (as well as the more establishment republicans attempting to hook on tags of their own, which inevitably results in the same thing happening the other way around).

  14. I think it should also be mentioned that if margins are close, neither party will bring a bill to the floor if they can’t get unanimous support from their own party. So the proposals most likely to have people vote against part usually just die in committee or at the desk of the majority leader/speaker.

  15. Your assumption is not accurate. Democrats and republicans both vote in blocs. Democrats will also vote unanimously on many issues. It isn’t something solely republicans do.

    It is also really easy to vote unanimously in opposition to things you know you will lose. At that point it is just making a statement.

    The real answer is the majority whip and the minority whip. They are two positions that try to enforce party positions and make deals and compromises to get everyone in the party on the same page.

    These positions exist in many other countries formally or informally.

    They are the second in command to the minority leader and majority leader which are the heads of the respective parties in the legislature.

    So if a controversial bill comes up the whips will try to secure the proper votes from all the party members. Each member can vote however they like but the whips are responsible for cajoling, convincing, threatening (not physically but just with party support or removal of party support) each legislator to support or oppose something.

  17. Republicans would be more likely to vote no on their own bills than vote yes in democratic bills. Same is true for democrats

  18. Where do people come up with this shit? Do some research before you present something as a fact.

  20. This is where pork barrel legislation comes into play. Congressmen can hold their own party’s bill hostage if there’s not something in it for them. The result is unanimous vote.

  23. They’re not a political party, they’re a cabal of billionares who use the law to make themselves richer. They don’t give a shit about governing, the law, the constitution, or the american people. They care about kickbacks, tax breaks, and their making promises to their cronies who made promises to other cronies.

  24. Pretty basic math right now. Democrats control both legislative chambers. This means that they all have extra power since they can bargain on legislation without being ignored, as opposed to the minority party. Look at the opposite phenomenon in 2017, when Republicans went through a bunch of chaotic negotiations to try and pass their healthcare plan, but it didn’t end up panning out.

  25. Politically the right tends to have less infighting compared to the left. That doesn’t mean there isn’t infighting on the right, the big one at the moment is whether Trump should run in 2024, but they do tend to argue less.

  26. Republicans are divided into factions as much as the Democrats are. However, these various factions tend to have far more in common with each other than the democratic factions have with each other. The Republican coalition is smaller, while the Democrat’s coalition is larger, broader, and more diverse in its ideological beliefs.

  27. > When it comes to legislation or rules I always see that bills are unanimously shot down or rammed through or upheld by Republicans where Democrats always have have internal dissent.

    This isn’t really the case historically and to the degree it is the case at the moment it’s due to the circumstances of the moment.

    The Democrats are in the majority so they’re only really voting on the stuff that’s on their agenda… BUT they don’t always agree on all the details or maybe only one faction really wants that thing but another faction is opposed… So there will be dissenting votes from members who care enough about their specific vision to throw a wrench into the works in hopes of negotiating something they like better down the line. Meanwhile the Republicans oppose ALL of it so it’s easy for them to vote in lock step in opposition.

    The Democrats are in the majority so they can afford to have a few members vote against a bill for strategic reasons. So a member will let them know he’s voting against the party on a bill and the whip will let them do so without any pressure because they’re already going to win and the vote against the party helps that individual member win their next election. The Republicans are in the minority so the ONLY way they can do anything is to vote in lock step and hope to peel off a few Democrats too… Anything they actually care about their whip will make sure even the most reluctant member have good reasons to vote with the party and they’ll be putting as much pressure as they can on a few centrist Democrats to try and actually pull off a win.

    When the shoe is on the other foot you’re likely to see a little more dissent on the Republican side and a little less on the Democratic side.

  29. Our political parties have factions and if a faction dissents, they can block things. It’s why I recommend that foreigners not think of our parties as a 1 to 1 for their parties. It is much more common for politicians to vote against their party in our system than in that of most of the world. And our parties have many more internal fractures than those of most other countries.

  30. Right now, the Republicans are in the minority, which means they don’t have to make as many hard decisions. It’s not ‘how do we want to govern’, the question that the Republicans have is ‘do we vote yes or no to this bill’?

    The Senate Majority Leader controls bills to vote on. The Republicans get handed bills and say ‘yes’ or ‘no’. Coming to a consensus on that, once you have a few days of internal deliberation and party whips, is far easier than the Democrats deciding what gets voted on in the first place, what issues deserve prioritization and to what degree.

    One the Republicans achieve a majority, you will note that it is them that seem disorganized, and the Democrats appear to be bastions of unity. In fact, the passage of time is not necessary to evaluate this claim. Look at the Republicans from 2016-2018 when they, on the table, held all the cards. The issue is intrinsic to the issue of leadership in the US Senate.

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