Rep. David Zuckerman, P-Burlington, says the public mistakenly believes partisan politics rule the day in the Statehouse. "The reality is that people across all parties work constructively."
Now that doesn't mean there aren't partisan votes, Zuckerman said. Those tend to take place when bills come to the floor of either the House or Senate. There could be a few of those kinds of votes this week, in fact, when the health care bill, budget, pay act and transportation bills come up for debate in the House.
To prove his point, however, Zuckerman asked Legislative staff for a tally of the votes on bills coming out of committees -- from January of 2007 through Town Meeting a few weeks ago. In committee, lawmakers often shed their partisan capes because they are working from common sets of information, they are deliberating with people they have gotten to know and respect, and they generally feel like they have opportunities to raise concerns and get them addressed.
Zuckerman passed out the results of the staff's research:
Committees voted on 159 bills between Jan. 1, 2007 and Feb. 29, 2008.
On 132 bills, the votes were unanimous --- that's 83 percent.
On 14 bills, one lawmaker voted 'no' ---- that's 9 percent.
On three, there were two 'no' votes --- that's 2 percent.
On five, there were three 'no' votes --- that's 3 percent.
On four there were four 'no' votes --- that's 3 percent.
"This is how nonpartisan this building really is," Zuckerman said.
--Nancy Remsen
