Parker Griffith’s voting record
Much has been made – and I’m sure much more will be made – of Parker Griffith’s (AL-05) allegiance to the Democrat Party. You’ll no doubt hear many ads leading up to the midterm elections about how he voted with his party X% of the time. I like to present the facts here, so I did the same analysis of Griffith’s votes that I did a couple of times for Bud Cramer’s voting record (here and here).
Note: My source is the Washington Post’s Congress Votes database.
The number you’ll see and hear about is 87%. That is the percentage of his votes that followed the party line. But, he also voted with the GOP 58% of the time. How can that be? Well, it turns out that the GOP and Democrats agreed on 46% of the votes. I consider that 46% to be useless. More on that shortly.
While the 87% figure is somewhat misleading because it includes mutually agreeable votes it is the best metric we have for gauging his overall independence relative to his colleagues. As it turns out he is pretty darn independent. Out of 435 members only 37 have voted with their own party less than Griffith. Just by using the page size as a guide it looks like over half of all representatives (from both parties) vote with their party at least 95% of the time. It is also of interest that only one member votes less with his own party than Bobby Bright (AL-02). Bright only voted with the Democrats on 73.5% of the votes. Geez, almost makes you think Griffith and Bright are vulnerable members of a liberal party who hail from from conservative districts.
As I mentioned above, I prefer to toss out votes in which both parties took the same position. That leaves 249 votes to work with. This is where the rubber hits the road, so to speak. Of this subset, Griffith took the Democrat position on 77% of the votes. For those of you waiting for Obama to pay your mortgage that means he voted with the Republicans 23% of the time.
That 77% number is interesting when compared to Cramer’s voting record. Using the same voting analysis methodology, Cramer also voted with his party in the 70-80% range until 1994 when Wayne Parker nearly beat him. After the 1994 election and the Republican takeover Cramer shifted noticeably, voting with the Democrats only about 60% of the time steadily until 2007, which is when the Democrats took control of the House. After that he reverted back to over 80% with the Democrats. Griffith seems to be charting the exact same course that Cramer did. That formula kept Cramer in office for nine terms. It remains to be seen if it will work as well for Griffith.
While this is somewhat interesting, I think it would be more relevant to qualm with Rep. Griffith’s individual votes (which I know you do and will). Largely, a blanket percentage makes good politics, but not a very instructive criticism.
Who said I was criticizing him? To be perfectly honest, this analysis is complimentary if anything. He is doing what he said he would do. He said he would be independent – and he is one of the more independent members of the House. He indicated he would follow in Bud Cramer’s foot steps – and he is doing so. The Pelosi vote not withstanding, I can’t think of a single vote he has made that I disagree with other than maybe a rules vote early this year. I’m sure there have been some, but they haven’t been significant enough for me to notice them. I would like to see him come out and speak strongly about the issues when he ultimately votes on the right side, although to date his statements have been lukewarm.
A good analysis, but what I tell my students every day is that you have to look below the surface.
How many of these 87 percent, 11 percent, what-have-you votes are pointless — politically motivated votes purposely put in place by either the Republicans or Democrats to trip up the other party? Which ones are stimulus, kids health insurance (the acronym escapes me), tarp, the budget, appropriations, energy, etc?
The statement will be made and now its up to the candidate to tell why its a bad thing to the undecided/non party line/swing voters. Too often, they fail
Thank you Brian for taking the time to do this.
Forgive my narcissism, but you really put Griffith through the ringer regularly, so I took the post to mean his record was a bad thing. It will be interesting to see where he falls with regard to the health care debate.