Discuss the Factors That Influence Voting Behaviour in Congress

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Discuss the factors that influence the voting behaviours of members of congress First and foremost, almost all members of congress are members of a political party (either the Republicans or the Democrats) and so naturally we could expect that their party membership could come in to play to influence their voting choices. Traditionally there has always been a significant variety of opinion and ideology within each party, meaning that party membership alone was no guarantee of any particular voting behaviour. While today some variety does remain, it is widely accepted that the parties have become more ideologically separate from one another and internally homogenous. In 1953 party unity votes in congress were at 52.1% in the House and 51.7% in the senate. By 1982 it had fallen to 36.4% and 43.4%, however since then it has risen dramatically to 72.8% and 59.8% in 2012. In the 1980s there we had examples of left wing republicans such as Lowell Weicker and right wing democrats such as Ed Zorinsky, and thus significant ideological overlap between the parties. However this has clearly reduced. What has been described as the ‘rise of hyper-partisanship’ has seen each party become more united in opposition to one another. We have seen the rise of the ‘Hastert rule’ among republicans, which dictates that the speaker shouldn’t allow the vote unless the majority of republicans support it. Today members of congress are much more likely to vote along party lines, particularly when it comes to key, controversial issues. For example in 2009 no republicans voted for the fiscal stimulus package, and when it came to the American Taxpayer Relief Act in January 2013 (aimed at avoiding the fiscal cliff) an overwhelming majority of Democrats voted in favour, and almost all republicans voted against. Furthermore the republicans are almost unanimously united in opposition to Obamacare and

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