The closest votes in the 2013 Legislature

It has long been tradition that floor votes in the Utah Legislature pass with overwhelming majorities taking the same side. Democrats and Republicans alike tend to get behind the same bills. That being said, there were a few very close votes in the 2013 Legislature.

Consensus voting

Let’s start by looking at the general trend: Consensus voting. Divisive bills tend to be heavily watered down before the reach the floor. By the time a bill actually comes to a floor vote, lawmakers often have little reason to oppose it.

Brian Greene’s HB 114 is a great example. As introduced, it would have made it a crime for federal law enforcement officers to enforce federal firearms laws within Utah. Paradoxically, it would also have required the Attorney General to provide defense counsel for any federal law enforcement officers so charged, even though the AG’s office would also be supervising the prosecution. By the time it reached the House floor, those provisions had been replaced with milder language that merely “affirmed” the state’s dominance in regulated firearms. As a result, it passed through the House 49-17-9. Although that’s a narrower vote margin than is typical in the House, it’s hard to imagine the bill receiving nearly as many votes in its original form.

Most bills start out less provocative than HB 114. By the time they’ve been amended in committee, they reach the floor looking relatively mild. As such, most votes in the Utah Legislature pass with an overwhelming bipartisan majority.

Take a look at the chart below. It shows the average percentage of legislators who vote on the winning side, by chamber. From 2007 to 2013, the House has typically seen an average between 92 and 94%; the Senate has seen averages between 95 and 96%.

Average percentage of legislators who vote on the winning side, by chamber

Democrats controlled 17% of the Senate and 19% of the House in 2013. In most of the preceding years, they controlled 20-something percent of the seats. If most Democrats weren’t joining the majority, then the high averages reported in the chart above wouldn’t be possible. A “party-line vote” occurs when the majority of Democrats votes against the majority of Republicans. Party-line votes are rare in the Utah Legislature, as you can see in the following chart. It depicts the percentage of votes that were party-line votes in each chamber, year-by-year. In 2013, only 11.7% of House votes were decided along party lines (roughly average since 2007), while only 5.5% of Senate votes were decided along party lines (tying 2007 for the lowest rate seen since 2007).

Frequency of party-line votes, by chamber

Which votes were the closest?

Now that we’ve established that consensus voting is the norm, let’s look at the closest votes from 2013. First we’ll look at the House, then at the Senate. In the tables, you can click on bill names to see the bill’s content, and you can click on the vote margin (ayes-nays-absent) to see which legislators voted each way.

The 20 closest votes in the 2013 Utah House

The 20 closest votes in the 2013 Utah Senate

Additional data

On my personal website, you can find the closest votes from past years, or you can find additional statistics about floor voting patterns (such as consensus voting and party-line voting).

Possibly related posts:

• The closest votes in the 2014 Utah Legislature
• Recap: What have we learned about the 2012 Utah legislature?
• Recap: Looking back at the 2013 Utah Legislature

Possibly related posts (automatically generated)

• The closest votes in the 2014 Utah Legislature (March 19, 2014)
• Recap: What have we learned about the 2012 Utah legislature? (March 15, 2012)
• Who voted “no” in the 2012 Utah legislature? (March 14, 2012)