By Laurel Harbridge
Nov. 23, 2009

There has been a great deal of attention focused on how partisan the health care debate has become, and many have suggested that this is evidence of a broader decline in bipartisanship in Congress. With the exception of Senator Snowe’s bipartisan contribution to the Senate Finance Committee version of the health care reform bill, most of the coverage of the health care debate has shown it to be fiercely partisan. It certainly seems to be the case that this particular bill and debate is partisan, but is this symptomatic of a broader decline in bipartisanship, either on health care specifically or on all legislation?

Looking at patterns of voting and bill cosponsorship coalitions over the last three decades sheds light on this question. Similar to the picture that emerges of overall congressional bipartisanship, health care legislation has seen roll call votes become increasingly partisan since 1973, suggestive that partisanship has gone by the wayside in Congress.

However, the amount of bipartisan support in the initial bill cosponsorship coalitions in this policy area remains relatively constant across time. Between 40 and 65 percent of health care bills have bipartisan support (where bipartisan bills are classified as those with at least one-fifth of the cosponsors coming from the party opposite the party of the bill’s sponsor), and there is no apparent downward trend over time. In contrast, the percentage of bipartisan roll call votes has declined from upwards of 90 percent in 1974 to under 10 percent in 1995, and 40 percent in 2000. This pattern is similar to overall trends in congressional legislation.

Bipartisan legislation is introduced (and does become law) but the roll call votes are skewed toward partisan legislation, taking advantage of issues with agreement within parties and the divisions between the parties. Surely the current health care legislation is partisan, even in its cosponsorship as there are no Republican cosponsors, but when we focus on just one piece of legislation that shows partisan divisions in Congress we miss the great deal of bipartisan legislation on health care and in other policy areas. We cannot look at just one highly salient, highly political piece of legislation and accurately gauge whether partisanship or bipartisanship is the dominant paradigm in Congress.