"8 years of Republican control"

On blog after blog, I read about “8 years of Bush” or “8 years of Republican control”. As if Pres. Bush and the Republican party in Congress had total control over the country. These statements often reflect either ignorance or complete denial of the facts.

First, we know that Pres. Bush did not have Congressional support in the final two years of his 2nd term, as the 110th Congress was controlled by Democrats (233-202 in the House, and 49-49-2 in the Senate with Leiberman and Sanders as “independents” who mostly joined Democrats when they voted). Any bill which passed the 110th Congress had to have Democratic support, and especially had to have the support of Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Indeed, they passed two bills that Pres. Bush vetoed and who’s vetoes were subsequently overridden. (Water Resources Development Act of 2007 and Food and Energy Security Act of 2007 (the 2007 Farm Bill)).

But even when Republicans held majorities in Congress under Bush, as they did in the 107th-109th Congresses, the majorities were slim, and especially slim in the Senate (often an even split). Thus whenever a bill was approved in the Senate, it had to be done with support of something close to 20% of the Democrats in the Senate (assuming 100% Republican support, which was not at all guaranteed). In light of this, anything that passed the Congress did so with something of a bipartisan effort, since Democrats could block the Senate on any issue simply by withholding cloture votes as a bloc (or something remotely like a bloc). Instead we saw one of the most “Bushy” bills, the PATRIOT Act, passed 99-1 in the Senate and 357-66 in the House. On the other hand, another big Bush bill, the Medicare Modernization Act, passed 220-215 with 16 Democrats voting Yea in the House (and 25 Republicans voting Nay) and 54-44 in the Senate, with 11 Democrats supporting it and 9 Republicans opposed (i.e., nearly ¼ of the Democrats in the Senate voted for the bill). In perhaps the most telling vote, the Iraq war was started with strong Democratic support, according to Wikipedia: “Introduced in Congress on October 2, 2002 in conjunction with the Administration's proposals, H.J.Res. 114 passed the House of Representatives on Thursday afternoon at 3:05 p.m. EDT on October 10, 2002 by a vote of 296-133, and passed the Senate after midnight early Friday morning at 12:50 a.m. EDT on October 11, 2002 by a vote of 77-23. It was signed into law as Pub.L. 107-243 by President Bush on October 16, 2002.” Eighty-two Democrats (40%) supported the action in the House and 29 Democrats (50%) in the Senate also supported the action. In fact, the Democrats+Jeffords(I-VT) as a bloc had a 51-49 majority in the Senate, yet they still passed the bill. Even the Bush tax cuts of 2003 could have been held up, but 2 Yeas from Democrats in the Senate counterbalanced 3 Nays by Republicans, leaving the final vote in Dick Cheney’s hands breaking the 50-50 tie.

It has been widely reported than Democrats in Congress (esp. Barney Frank) blocked attempts by the Bush administration to reform and regulate the mortgage industry in the part of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Even though in the minority party, they could block items in committees and by withholding cloture, because the Senate was so evenly split.

In the end, nearly everything in the Bush years, other than executive orders and other policy matters (e.g. rules set by Cabinet Secs.) was done with some measure of Democratic support. In particular, since only Congress controls the purse strings, all the money spent under Bush was spent with Democratic votes in support. Had Democrats held their party line, the “Bush years” would have come out differently.