4 ms·
In the 113th Congress, it looks like the House of Representatives had 95 unanimous votes, where unanimous is defined as having zero no votes and at least one ye
by lukeschlather 11y ago
In the 113th Congress, it looks like the House of Representatives had 95 unanimous votes, where unanimous is defined as having zero no votes and at least one yes vote. This is out of 1204 votes, based on a quick little script I whipped up.
You can look at the raw data pretty easily thanks to https://www.govtrack.us/developers/data https://www.govtrack.us/developers/data
rsync -avz --delete --delete-excluded --exclude **/text-versions/ govtrack.us::govtrackdata/congress/113/votes .
for file in votes/*/h*/data.json; do
noes=$(jq '(.votes.Nay | length) + (.votes.No | length)' $file;)
yeses=$(jq '(.votes.Yea | length) + (.votes.Aye | length)' $file;)
if [[ "$yeses" -gt 0 && "$noes" -eq 0 ]]
then
echo $file : "No: $noes" "Yes: $yeses"
fi
done | wc -l
In the senate, the number is 87. (The code for the senate is basically the same, except you do
votes/*/s*/data.json
instead of
votes/*/h*/data.json
)
- nickpsecurity 11y agoCool. Thanks. It's the definition of unanimous that's a little fishy. I thought it meant everyone voted Yes for it whereas even a 1 to 0 vote could pass as unanimous, right?
- etjossem 11y agoThat's why we have a quorum. Half of all seated Senators (51) are required to be present for the Senate to do business. For a House with no vacancies, half means 218 Representatives. So you're right; fishy "unanimous" votes can and do happen. A controversial measure might pass unanimously in a legislative body because all the opposition walked out in protest. This happened about a month ago in the 50-seat North Carolina Senate, which is dominated by Republicans. [1] [1] https://www.carolinajournal.com/news-article/senate-democrats-walk-out-of-vote-overturning-bathroom-ordinance/ https://www.carolinajournal.com/news-article/senate-democrat...
- lukeschlather 11y agoIt looks like the smallest unanimous vote in the 113/114th congresses was 353. http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2013/roll631.xml http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2013/roll631.xml For the Senate, 83. http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_votes/vote1141/vote_114_1_00300.xml http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_votes/vote11...
- nickpsecurity 11y agoMakes sense. Appreciate the tip.