The zone of legislative death

The graph above shows the Zone of Legislative Death as a white band. Within this band is plotted the actual Democratic 100-seat popular vote. The color of the dots on the right panel indicates which party ended up in control of the Senate. Only once since 1980 have Democrats had a filibuster-proof majority—for six months, between the Minnesota Democrat Al Franken’s election in July 2009 and the Massachusetts Republican Scott Brown’s election in January 2010. And during the entire four-decade period, the total Democratic vote percentage has stayed between 49 percent and 54.5 percent, always below the necessary 55.8 percent. Although Republicans do not need as much support to achieve 60 votes, getting there is still nearly out of reach because they usually win fewer votes nationally than Democrats. (In fact, Republicans have never once achieved 60 seats in the period since 1980.) But exceptions to the filibuster rule have been carved out that allow two major Republican policy priorities: cutting taxes and confirming federal judges. For Republicans, then, the status quo gives satisfactory results. For Democrats, current levels of partisan loyalty and obstruction guarantee that virtually no other bills can pass. The net result is a system that preferentially blocks one side’s goals.