1/17/2010

With big majorities in both the House and Senate, Obama is getting a radical agenda through Congress

CQ rates Obama as more successful in getting his agenda through than any president since Eisenhower in getting his agenda through Congress, even surpassing the fabled Lyndon Johnson. Congressional Quarterly claims that Obama's success rate in the House and Senate on votes where he had a clear position was 96.7 percent, beating previous Johnson's 93 percent record level in 1965. A big difference is that the while Democrats had huge majorities in 1965, Northern and Southern Democrats were not always acting as if they were from the same party. Democrats are much more unified today than they were back then. In addition, it was much easier to filibuster back in the 1960s when it took 67 votes to have cloture. Here is a graph from NPR.

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