The closest votes of the 2016 Legislature

The Utah Legislature loves consensus. Bills seldom pass on party-line votes. Instead, votes routinely pass with both Republicans and Democrats on board, producing an average majority size of 93% (House) and 96% (Senate).

But averages have exceptions, and there were some doozies in the 2016 Legislature. Let’s start in the House. With 75 Representatives, it takes 38 votes to pass. Two issues were decided by a single vote, both eking out passage on a 38-37 decision. Unsurprisingly, they were both issues that attracted lots of coverage: HB221, which requires parents opting out of vaccinations for their school-age children to first watch an educational video, and HJR18, which calls for a Constitutional convention to consider term limits for the US Congress.

Here’s the full list of House floor votes that were decided by a margin of 10% (7.5 votes) or fewer:

Now let’s go the Senate. With 29 Senators, it takes 15 votes to pass. The closest vote wasn’t a 15-14 vote, though–rather, it was a 13-13 vote, with 3 absent, rejecting HB348 at 11:02pm on March 10–only 58 minutes before the session’s constitutionally-mandated adjournment. 45 minutes later, HB348 came back for reconsideration and passed into law on a 15-12-2 vote, just 13 minutes before the midnight deadline. Yes, that means two of the session’s closest Senate votes came 45 minutes apart, voting on the same bill, within an hour of adjournment, with opposite results.

After that lone 13-13 tie, the next-closest vote was a failed 14-15 vote on SB61, which would have eliminated indoor smoking rooms at Utah airports.

This table lists all Senate votes decided by a margin of less than 10%–that is, 2.9 votes or fewer.

Though most votes pass with near unanimity, legislators throw enough of these nailbiters out there to keep things interesting.

You can find longer tables, as well as tables for past years, at my closest floor votes page.

Possibly related posts:

• Who voted “nay” the most in the 2017 Legislature?
• Utah lawmakers loved to agree in the 2017 Legislature
• Unanimity remained the rule in the 2016 Utah Legislature

Possibly related posts (automatically generated)

• Who voted “no” in the 2012 Utah legislature? (March 14, 2012)
• Who voted “nay” the most in the 2017 Legislature? (March 15, 2017)
• Who voted “nay” most often in the 2013 Utah Legislature? (March 27, 2013)