Philip Bump at the Washington Post’s “The Fix” reports Here are the members of Congress who vote against their party the most. No surprise here who is the No. 2 Dem in the House (Kyrsten Sinema will have to work harder to outdo Collin Peterson from Minnesota who is only nominally a Democrat):
Using data from GovTrack, we looked at every vote taken in the House and Senate so far in the 114th Congress. We figured out the majority position for each party (in cases where it was not unanimous) and compared every member of each body’s vote against the party majority.
The member of the House most willing to buck his party is Walter Jones (R-N.C.), who has voted against the Republican majority more than one-third of the time. On the Democratic side, the high-water mark is Collin Peterson (D-Minn.), who’s at 30 percent.
In the Senate, Joe Manchin (D-W.V.) voted against the rest of the Democrats more than 25 percent of the time. But Susan Collins (R-Maine) was even more of a maverick, at nearly 27 percent. (The original maverick, John McCain, is only at 8 percent so far this Congress. His protege, Lindsey O. Graham, cracked the top 10 for Republicans.)
The image above considers all votes, including ones where going against the party doesn’t really matter that much [so-called “safety” votes.] If you look only at Senate votes where the majority got less than 66 votes or House votes where the winners were under 235 [includes party “whipped” votes], the scene changes a bit.
For example, Manchin was more likely to vote against the Democrats in closer votes (although on the Senate side, the number of non-close votes was pretty small). That held for the rest of the Democrats, too.
On the House side, where being in the minority offers less power, the Democrats that voted the most against the party were less likely to do so when the vote was close. But Republicans like Christopher P. Gibson and Bob Dold were much more likely to.
There have been seven House votes so far this Congress in which the winning side had fewer than 218 votes. Dold voted against his party six of the seven times. Gibson voted against the Republicans every single time.
You will not be surprised to learn that their districts have been rated toss-ups by Cook Political Report. Or that Gibson is retiring.
For Republicans it is of interest to note that, while “The Maverick” John McCain does not make this list, the other members of the New Three Stooges, McCain’s puppet boy Little Lindsey Graham, and Kelly Ayotte (starring as “Shemp”) do. McCain’s seat mate Jeff Flake also makes the list. How long will it take Arizona GOP county parties to bring a resolution to censure Jeff Flake for being “too liberal” like they did to John McCain? Worth watching.