How bipartisan is recent legislation?
Governor’s office claims support from both parties
THE MEDIA: Web. WHO SAID IT: Arizona Governor’s Office. OFFICE: Governor. PARTY: Republican. THE COMMENT: “In 2017, more than 91 percent of the legislation Gov. Ducey signed was passed with bipartisan support . ... If we count bipartisan support in only one of the two chambers, that number shoots even higher: more than 95 percent.”
Of the Senate bills with bipartisan support, “more than 61 percent passed with completely unanimous support (not a single ‘no’ vote) and more than 72 percent were passed with near-unanimous support (two or fewer ‘no’ votes).”
THE FORUM: News release posted to the governor’s website on May 31.
WHAT WE’RE LOOKING AT: Was the Arizona Legislature as bipartisan last session as Gov. Doug Ducey claims?
ANALYSIS: Ducey signed 334 bills that emerged from the Legislature in this year’s session.
The Governor’s Office counted passage of a bill as “bipartisan” if it received at least one vote from members of both parties. This does not mean a majority of both parties supported it.
This isn’t unusual. There is no legal definition for what makes something bipartisan, and whether a bill is deemed to have bipartisan support often depends on the perspective of the person making the claim. (Backers of controversial proposals will loudly proclaim their measures as “bipartisan” when they can pick up at least one vote from a member of the other party.)
Ryan Clancy, a spokesman for the Washington, D.C.,-based bipartisan strategy group No Labels, compared it to the 1964 U.S. Supreme Court ruling on pornography: You can’t define bipartisanship, but “you know it when you see it.”
During the 2017 legislative session, 91 percent of bills signed by Ducey received at least one “yes” vote from members of both parties, according to Legiscan.com, a website that tracks statehouse legislation nationwide. That climbed to 95 percent when looking only at the Senate.
A more ironclad definition of bipartisanship may be bills that receive significant support from members of both parties. The highest standard likely would be measures that receive votes from a majority of members of both parties.
That happened regularly this session, too.
Of the 334 bills passed by the House, 269 of them had “yes” votes from majorities of Democrats and Republicans. In the Senate, this happened 290 times.
That works out to 80 percent of bills in the House and 86 percent in the Senate.
It’s not as high as the 90-plus percent count of bipartisan support from the Governor’s Office, but it’s not precipitously lower, either.
Clancy called it a high number for bipartisanship.
“We would certainly love it if Washington looked like that,” he said.
As for unanimous votes, Ducey spokesman Daniel Scarpinato said in an email that they chose to focus on bipartisan bills in the Senate, “because it’s a more divided chamber than the House, therefore making a unanimous vote more relevant and significant.”
Seventeen out of 30 Senate members are Republicans, while 35 of 60 members of the House belong to the GOP.
The Senate passed 61 percent of “bipartisan” bills unanimously and 77 percent near-unanimously, using the definitions provided by the Governor’s Office. In a follow-up email, Scarpinato adjusted the near-unanimous count upward to 77 percent from the office’s original statement.
Had they looked at all bills that passed both chambers, they would have found 40 percent passed unanimously, and 53 percent near-unanimously.
A final thing to consider: Most bills don’t produce large-scale changes and are devoid of controversy. Many are simple administrative matters, such as House Bill 2240, which involved juror panels and replacements. Those typically pass with bipartisan majorities fairly easily — HB 2240 had no votes against it in either chamber.
On the other hand, high-profile bills, such as Senate Bill 1431, which expanded the state’s school-voucher program, often face much steeper climbs to reach bipartisan support or a majority. Only Republicans voted for that measure.
BOTTOM LINE: The gist of the Governor’s Office claim is true, though some people may quibble with how “bipartisan” is defined. While there’s no standard for bipartisan support, one vote doesn’t necessarily reflect consensus between Republicans and Democrats.
Still, the number of bills that passed with majority support from both parties was high, with Republicans and Democrats in both chambers achieving consensus more than 80 percent of the time.
The count of unanimous tallies is similar: accurate, but presented in a way that gives the most favorable numbers possible. FINDING: Three stars: Mostly true. SOURCES: News release from the Governor’s Office, https://azgovernor.gov/governor/blog/2017/05/arizonafinds-bipartisan-agreement-many-is sues; emails from Daniel Scarpinato, spokesman for Gov. Doug Ducey; voting data from Legiscan.com, https://legiscan.com/AZ/legislation; phone interview with Ryan Clancy, No Labels spokesman; phone interview with the secretary of the Senate and House clerk; bill information on azleg.gov, http:// www.azleg.gov/.