WHO VOTED FOR WHAT?….My offhand comment in the previous post that “the press rarely even bothers to report which party supports which stuff” was prompted by this article in the LA Times on Friday about the vote on Ed Markey’s net neutrality amendment. I’m probably late to the party on this (no pun intended), but when did it become standard practice to write stories about legislation without even taking a single sentence to provide the vote count and the party breakdown?
For the record, the net neutrality amendment failed 269-152. Republicans voted against it 211-11 and Democrats voted in favor 140-58. But anyone reading the LAT article would have no idea who to blame or praise for this outcome. It was just “Congress.”
I don’t get it. We’re repeatedly told that we live in the most polarized partisan atmosphere in decades, and yet news reports about legislation routinely refuse to add the dozen or so words it would take to tell you who voted for what. Why is that?
UPDATE: Brendan Nyhan has a more detailed breakdown of the vote. The news is not good for net neutrality supporters, he says.
