Yesterday the Senate voted on competing proposals for discretionary spending for the remaining seven months of Fiscal Year 2011.
Republicans offered the House-passed bill, H.R. 1. Democratic leaders supported an alternative offered by Appropriations Committee Chairman Daniel Inouye.
Each proposal needed 60 votes to succeed. Both failed to get even a majority.
Here I show these two votes, with Senate Democrats (and the two Independents who caucus with Democrats) in blue and Senate Republicans in red. Heavy solid coloring represents an aye vote, while lightly shaded coloring represents a no vote. As always, you can click on a graph to see a larger version.
It is politically significant that, in a 53-47 Democratic Senate, the House-passed bill garnered more votes than the Senate Democratic alternative. That is a bad outcome for the Senate majority party.
