Immigration Vote Demonstrates Party “Defection” Trend

Hardening partisanship, the force driving presidential election competition down to a handful of battleground states — the same battleground states year after year — was at work in last Thursday’s immigration vote. The compromise reform package died in the Senate 14 votes short of cloture, and 15 nays came from Democrats.

Because the bill was generally opposed by Republicans and generally favored by Democrats, progressives saw those 15 Democratic votes as a majority-breaking defection. Deeper analysis of the states they represent brings the “defection” argument into question, however.

Of those 15 “defecting” nays, 14 came from Democrats representing states that G.W. Bush carried in 2004. Only Michigan’s Stabenow (D-Mich.) truly voted against her party and Michigan is the kind of populist state where a Democrat has to be careful on issues that can be seen as “too progressive.