Bill Passed. Simple Majority Required. Independents are grouped with the party they caucus with.

Data from the official record atsenate.gov.

The Yea votes represented 89% of the country’s population by apportioning each state’s population to its voting senators.

What you can do

What was the procedure for this vote?

1. What was this vote on?

Not all votes are meant to pass legislation. In the Senate some votes are not about legislation at all, since the Senate must vote to confirm presidential nominations to certain federal positions.

This vote is related to a bill. However, that doesn’t necessarily tell you what it is about. Congress makes many decisions in the process of passing legislation, such as on the procedures for debating the bill, whether to change the bill before voting on passage, and even whether to vote on passage at all.

You can learn more about the various motions used in Congress atEveryCRSReport.com. If you aren’t sure what the Senate was voting on, try seeing if it’s onthis list.

2. What is the next step after this vote?

Take a look at where this bill is in the legislative process. What might come next? Keep in mind what this specific vote was on, and the context of the bill. Will there be amendments? Will the other chamber of Congress vote on it, or let it die?

For this question it may help to briefly examinethe bill itself.

What is your analysis of this vote?

1. What trends do you see in this vote?

Members of Congress side together for many reasons beside being in the same political party, especially so for less prominent legislation or legislation specific to a certain region. What might have determined how the roll call came out in this case? Does it look like Members of Congress voted based on party, geography, or some other reason?

2. How did your senators vote?

There are two votes here that should be more important to you than all the others. These are the votes cast by your senators, which are meant to represent you and your community. Do you agree with how your senators voted? Why do you think they voted the way they did?

If you don’t already know who your Members of Congress are you can find them byentering your address here.

3. How much of the United States population is represented by the yeas?

GovTrack displays the percentage of the United States population represented by the yeas on some Senate votes just under the vote totals. We do this to highlight how the people of the United States are represented in the Senate. Since each state has two senators, but state populations vary significantly, the individuals living in each state have different Senate representation. For example, California’s population of near 40 million is given the same number of senators as Wyoming’s population of about 600,000.

Do the senators who voted yea represent a majority of the people of the United States? Does it matter?