President Joe Biden asked for bipartisan support for his legislative agenda in his State of the Union address Tuesday night, but he faces a stark reality: The political parties in Congress are increasingly unified in their voting patterns, often putting majority Democrats and minority Republicans at odds.
“While it often appears that we never agree, that isn’t true. I signed 80 bipartisan bills into law last year. From preventing government shutdowns to protecting Asian-Americans from still-too-common hate crimes to reforming military justice,” the president’s prepared remarks read. But despite that record, many of the most contentious legislative issues, such as voting rights, split the parties down the middle.
Holding an extraordinarily narrow majority, House Democrats needed to remain unified in 2021 to pass legislation and ward off attempts to attach amendments that members of their caucus would view as “poison pills.”
