Not only did the vote fail to break along party lines, it didn't break along geographic lines either. Outside of the Bay Area, I don't see any obvious patterns, like an urban / rural split. Does anyone see anything else?
Good question. It's more muddled than typical votes.
If you take the party line (Dems favored the amendment, Reps disfavored) as a baseline, you have to explain two things: solid red (R's who voted Yes) and striped blue (D's who voted No).
So, the regional delta's on that baseline: (1) the Western states (Montana down to New Mexico) had plenty of Republican votes for (solid red); (2) the DC-NY area had more Dem votes against (striped blue). The standard explanation of (1) would be libertarian Westerners, and for (2) would be, that was where 9/11 was, plus that's where much of the intelligence community lives. If you're in the government, you may trust the government more.
I don't know how to explain the consistent voting of Tennessee and South Carolina.
Sure, each congressperson has their own opinion. But this observation provides no explanatory power.
As others have said, one crude characterization of D/R split is that R is generally more supportive of spending for national security. I think this provides the ideological basis for the D/R split.
The interests of the President are not aligned with those of Congress in this case: the President is a consumer of the intel. This is why the D's in Congress did not follow him.
Additionally, I suspect that Congresspersons have noticed that their constituents are getting restless about intel collection. Obama doesn't have to run for election again, but they do.
As an observer of politics, I too find this vote very interesting.
> As others have said, one crude characterization of D/R split is that R is generally more supportive of spending for national security.
The split clearly doesn't work in this case.
I think the reason is that R is more concerned with privacy than D. Also R likes looking strong to other countries - this means spending on the military, they are not interesting in spending for the sake of spending. But the NSA fiasco does not make the US look strong in front of other countries.
D is more concerned with looking good in front of other countries (as opposed to strong), and the NSA situation doesn't do that either.
I suspect the ones that voted for it believe that the increase in security is worth the loss of face.
Off the top of my head, it appears that the leadership on both sides was against it (Pelosi, Cantor, Boehner)
If I had more time on my hands, I'd go check to see if tea party/progressive caucus/cbc/freshmen/intelligence committee went one way or another.
They get to split quite a few incentives here: Dems have the incentive to vote no to side with their president, R's have the opposite (and it's a republican amendment). The stereotypical platform of the two sides is the reverse of this, but both parties are generically pro-surveillance.
http://politics.nytimes.com/congress/votes/113/house/1/412
Not only did the vote fail to break along party lines, it didn't break along geographic lines either. Outside of the Bay Area, I don't see any obvious patterns, like an urban / rural split. Does anyone see anything else?