Analyzing Spatial Models of Choice and Judgment with R
-
-
Recent Posts
- An Early Look at Polarization in the 114th Congress
- The House and Senate Votes to Approve the Keystone XL Pipeline
- The Speaker Vote: 6 January 2015
- An Update on the Presidential Square Wave
- House and Senate Polarization 1879 – 2014
Archives
- February 2015
- January 2015
- December 2014
- November 2014
- September 2014
- August 2014
- July 2014
- June 2014
- May 2014
- April 2014
- March 2014
- February 2014
- January 2014
- December 2013
- November 2013
- October 2013
- September 2013
- July 2013
- June 2013
- May 2013
- April 2013
- March 2013
- February 2013
- January 2013
- December 2012
- November 2012
- October 2012
- September 2012
- August 2012
- July 2012
- June 2012
- May 2012
- April 2012
- March 2012
- February 2012
- January 2012
- December 2011
- November 2011
- October 2011
- August 2011
- April 2011
- March 2011
- February 2011
- January 2011
- December 2010
- November 2010
- October 2010
Categories
- 111th Lame Duck Congress
- 112th Congress
- 113th Congress
- 114th Congress
- 2010 Midterm Elections Conference
- 2012 Elections Conference
- American Political History
- Contemporary American Politics
- DW-NOMINATE Stand-Alone
- Issue Scaling
- Political Polarization
- Spatial (Geometric) Theory of Choice
- Uncategorized
Contact
Christopher Hare
chare [at] uga.edu
Keith T. Poole
ktpoole [at] uga.edu
Howard Rosenthal
howardrosenthal [at] nyu.eduStatCounter
Senate: Votes on Cloture and Confirmation of John Brennan as CIA Director
Below we use Optimal Classification (OC) in R to plot the Senate’s 81-16 vote to invoke cloture on the confirmation of John Brennan as CIA Director and its 63-34 vote on confirmation itself. Senator Rand Paul’s (R-KY) talking filibuster of the nomination the day before garnered considerable popular attention.
Sens. Rand Paul (R-KY) and Ted Cruz (R-TX) (who assisted Paul during the filibuster) voted Yea on cloture but Nay on the confirmation, while Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) (also a participant in the filibuster) voted Nay on both motions. The sixteen Republican Senators who opposed cloture and the thirty-one Republican Senators who opposed confirmation are mostly among the most conservative members of the caucus, but this issue is one that does not map very clearly onto the liberal-conservative divide. For instance, three of the Senate’s most liberal members—Sens. Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Jeff Merkley (D-OR), and Bernie Sanders (I-VT)—also voted Nay on confirmation. These particular votes were no doubt complicated by partisan considerations; but at least among the Republican caucus, ideology is a fairly good indicator of position on President Obama’s drone program.
Click images to enlarge
As a technical note, we are able to plot members of the 113th Senate so early in the new Congress by combining the roll call voting records of returning members in the 113th Senate with the 32 roll call votes held so far in the 113th Senate. Until more votes are compiled for the freshman members, the estimation of their ideal points will remain somewhat imprecise, but by bridging data from the 112th this problem will not be too severe.
Comments are closed.