Is it really any surprise that Sen. Olympia Snowe announced that she will vote for the health reform bill in the Senate Finance Committee? Last month, we did a vote analysis for the senior Maine senator and found that she is far more likely to vote with Democrats than her fellow Republicans. Despite her party affiliation, Snowe appears to have a voting record you would expect from a moderate to conservative Democrat. Her voting record shows that she is a much more reliable vote for the Democratic majority than her public Hamlet routine would suggest. You can see the visualization here and follow below.

Of the top twenty senators with the highest percentage of votes in common with Sen. Snowe, eighteen are Democrats, most of which are commonly identified as the most moderate Democrats in the caucus. Snowe holds a 70%+ vote correlation with thirteen senators, two of which are Republicans. The top twenty senators with votes in common with Olympia Snowe are:

• Sen. Susan Collins, R-ME (86.92%)
• Sen. Ben Nelson, D-NE (78.46%)
• Sen. Blanche Lincoln, D-AR (77.69%)
• Sen. Arlen Specter, D-PA (74.42%)
• Sen. Jon Tester, D-MT (74.03)
• Sen. Evan Bayh, D-IN (72.87%)
• Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-MN (72.66%)
• Sen. Mark Pryor, D-AR (71.81%)
• Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-ND (71.48%)
• Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-AK (71.15%)
• Sen. Max Baucus, D-MT (71.04%)
• Sen. Bill Nelson, D-FL (70.27%)
• Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-LA (70.16%)
• Sen. Herb Kohl, D-WI (69.62%)
• Sen. Mark Begich, D-AK (69.44%)
• Sen. Kent Conrad, D-ND (68.83%)
• Sen. Michael Bennet, D-CO (68.80%)
• Sen. Kay Hagan, D-NC (68.60%)
• Sen. Robert Byrd, D-WV (68.31%)
• Sen. Tim Johnson, D-SD (68.00%)

When we first published this analysis back in September, I wrote:

The Democrats with the highest voting agreement with Snowe are also seen as key votes in the health care reform push. Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska and Sen. Blanche Lincoln hold the two highest voting agreements with Snowe. Both are seen as key votes on any health reform bill and Nelson, in particular, has been a key player in all major legislation this year. Nelson was instrumental in passing the stimulus bill earlier this year and has recently echoed Snowe in her support for a public option trigger in the health care reform legislation. Lincoln is seen as one of the more conservative Democratic senators and faces a tough reelection campaign in one of the few states that trended away from the Democrats in the 2008 election. Her vote will be crucial to Democrats on health care reform and her high level of voting agreement with Snowe shows how crucial the Maine Republican’s support for a bill may be.

Since the end of July the Senate Finance Committee has been the focus of health care reform discussions. More specifically, the bipartisan "Gang of Six," organized by Sen. Max Baucus, has been working to formulate a health care compromise that some Republicans may be able to support. An analysis of voting agreement between the six senators involved in these discussions shows the likely futility of this effort as only one Republican shares similar voting patterns with the majority Democrats.

Sen. Olympia Snowe (subject of a voting agreement analysis here) is the only Republican in the "Gang of Six" with a substantial voting agreement with the Democrats involved. Snowe's agreement with the three Democrats, Sens. Baucus, Jeff Bingaman and Kent Conrad, is above 60% for all three, but below 60% for the other two Republicans, Sens. Mike Enzi and Chuck Grassley. This continues to underline the key role that Snowe can play in the health care reform plan's final structure.

Neither Grassley nor Enzi shares much in voting agreement with the Democrats in the "Gang". They both have voting agreements of 35% or less with the three Democrats. The lowest voting agreement for both is with Sen. Bingaman (23.4% for Enzi, 25.8% for Grassley).

Recently, Democrats have focused on only attracting one or two Republicans, Snowe being the highest target, to vote for the bill rather than pursuing the strategy that Baucus sought with the "Gang of Six" talks. These voting agreement numbers show that, aside from Sen. Snowe, the "Gang of Six" is intensely polarized in their voting patterns. The likelihood of bipartisan compromise was unlikely from the start of this process.

The above graphic was created using the New York Times Congress API and based on Nodebox code from Juice Analytics.

Despite what seemed to be a bruising August for health care reform efforts, Congress still appears to be on a path to pass a bill this year. At the center of that effort is one Republican, Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine. Snowe is perhaps that most moderate Republican remaining since Sen. Arlen Specter jumped ship to the Democrats. An analysis of her voting record this year shows that she is more likely to vote with the Democrats than to vote with her Republican peers. It comes as little wonder that she would be targeted as the deciding vote on health care reform.

Snowe has a 60% or higher voting agreement with every Democratic or Independent senator for the 111th Congress, while maintaining the same level of voting agreement with only twelve Republicans. The voting similarity between Snowe and Democrats is so similar that she holds a 70% or higher voting agreement with eleven Democratic senators. She holds this level of voting agreement with two Republicans.

The two Republicans that have a high level of voting agreement with Snowe are Sens. Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski. Sen. Collins, Maine's junior senator, is, like Snowe, often a reliable Republican vote for the Democrats. Collins also cast votes in support of the stimulus bill and other Democratic proposals including S-CHIP expansion and fair pay in the work place. Collins holds the highest voting agreement of any senator with Snowe at 86.92%. Murkowski's voting agreement with Snowe likely results from her support for fair pay in the work place (all Republican women in the Senate supported this legislation) and her support for most cloture votes.

The Democrats with the highest voting agreement with Snowe are also seen as key votes in the health care reform push. Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska and Sen. Blanche Lincoln hold the two highest voting agreements with Snowe. Both are seen as key votes on any health reform bill and Nelson, in particular, has been a key player in all major legislation this year. Nelson was instrumental in passing the stimulus bill earlier this year and has recently echoed Snowe in her support for a public option trigger in the health care reform legislation. Lincoln is seen as one of the more conservative Democratic senators and faces a tough reelection campaign in one of the few states that trended away from the Democrats in the 2008 election. Her vote will be crucial to Democrats on health care reform and her high level of voting agreement with Snowe shows how crucial the Maine Republican's support for a bill may be.

The regularity with which Snowe votes with Democrats may be a bright spot for the majority as they push forward in the health reform debate. As some have determined that reform efforts have dwindled as the summer has come to an end, a careful look at the landscape shows that little has changed. All that matters is whether Snowe intends to use her position as the most Democratic friendly Republican to craft a bill she would support.

To see voting agreement with Sen. Olympia Snowe for all senators see this visualization.

The visualization was created using data from the New York Times' Congress API.

Six senators called for a seventy day hold on voting on health care reform legislation today, according to the Huffington Post. The senators involved include three Democrats, Ben Nelson, Mary Landrieu and Ron Wyden, two Republicans, Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, and one Independent, Joe Lieberman. Each these senators has raised at least $1 million from the health and insurance sectors combined over the course of their respective careers. What could seventy days do for their campaign coffers?

(Some of these senators are not in cycle right now and are not raising much money right now, but, hypothetically, this is the money they could be raising considering the amounts they have raised over the course of their career.)

Sen. Susan Collins raised $1,559,446 from the health and insurance sectors over the course of her career. Her first day in office was January 7, 1997. In total, she has served 4,574 days as a United States Senator. This calculates out to her raising $341 every day from the health and insurance sectors. Seventy more days would yield $23,870.

Sen. Mary Landrieu raised $1,676,353 from the health and insurance sectors over the course of her career. Her first day in office was January 7, 1997. In total, she has served 4,574 days as a United States Senator. This calculates out to her raising $366.50 every day from the health and insurance sectors. Seventy more days would yield $25,655.

Sen. Joe Lieberman raised $3,593,771 from the health and insurance sectors over the course of his career. His first day in office, as a senator, was January 3, 1989. In total, he has served 7,136 days as a United States Senator. This works out to him raising $504 a day from the health and insurance sectors. Seventy more days would yield $35,280.

Sen. Ben Nelson raised $2,257,165 from the health and insurance sectors over the course of his career. His first day in office, as a senator, was January 3, 2001. In total, he has served 3,118 days as a United States Senator. This works out to him raising $724 a day from the health and insurance sectors. Seventy more days would yield $50,680.

Sen. Olympia Snowe raised $1,147,630 from the health and insurance sectors over the course of her career. Her first day in office was January 4, 1995. In total, she has served 5,309 days as a United States Senator. This calculates out to her raising $216 every day from the health and insurance sectors. Seventy more days would yield $15,120.

Sen. Ron Wyden raised $1,414,911 from the health and insurance sectors over the course of his career. His first day in office, as a senator, was February 6, 1996. In total, he has served 4,911 days as a United States Senator. This works out to $288 every day from the health and insurance sectors. Seventy more days would yield $20,160.

Factor in lobbying into these seventy days and the amount of spending around this bill could skyrocket. If we go by the numbers presented by the Washington Post, that the health sector is spending $1.4 million a day on lobbying, then we'll find another seventy days would allow the industry to spend another $98 million.

With Sen. Arlen Specter grabbing the headlines yesterday with his party switch, here are two cool interactive visualizations that show the 'topography' behind the senator’s dramatic move.

The first one comes from two political science Ph.D. students at the University of Michigan who write the Computational Legal Studies blog. It’s a view of where Specter sits in terms of the campaign finance environment in relation to all other senators during the 110th Congress.  The visualization allows you to zoom in and read the labels on large institutional givers and the senators they made contributions to. You'll see that Specter is closer to the Democrats than the Republicans in this visualization.  Here are the overall Senate and the House version. And here’s the visualization of industry giving to senators.

Another very cool visualization comes from Slate, where they present the Senate as a “Facebook-style” social network. Slate’s visualization clearly demonstrates how Specter and the vast majority of his former GOP senatorial colleagues kept each other at arm’s length. Slate connects senators who vote together 65 percent of the time. By playing around with the visualization you will see that most senators hang tight with the lawmakers from their own party. Specter is one of four that "float" between the two-party masses, Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins from Maine and Ben Nelson from Nebraska.

Super visualizations like these are one of the more interesting and most illustrative ways to open up government data so anyone can figure out what is really going on.

Thanks to Sen. Olympia Snowe, we are up to 34 cosponsors on S. 482, the Senate e-filing bill! If you want to help us pass this bill, go here and call your senators to tell them to cosponsor S. 482.

There are so many "fool me once..." moments with the ongoing bailout of the financial industry. One that is particularly galling is that the fallen gods of Wall Street are still spending freely to lobby the government. Essentially, we have taxpayer money cycling from the our wallets, to the government, to a bank, and then to a lobbyist, who then works to get more money for the bank. Robert Reich, over at TPM Cafe, is very much correct when he writes:

Yet what's happened to the Wall Street campaign contributions and to the lobbyists? They're still going strong. We now know that many of the financial giants that have been bailed out by taxpayers continue to finance a platoon of Washington lobbyists, who are at this moment trying to influence TARP II and the next attempt to regulate Wall Street. In effect, your money and mine, and that of all other taxpayers, is paying these lobbyists to push Congress in a direction we have every reason to believe is not in our interests but in the continued interests of Wall Street. Citigroup, the recipient of $45 billion of taxpayer money so far, is still fielding "an army" of Washington lobbyists, according to the New York Times. Its lobbyists are working on a host of issues, including the bailout. In the fourth quarter of 2008, when it got its first infusion of bailout money, Citi spent $1.77million on lobbying fees. During the last three months of 2008, at least seven other firms receiving bailout funds (American Express, Capital One, Goldman Sachs, KeyCorp, Morgan Stanley, PNC and Bank of New York Mellon) lobbied the government about the bailout.

Would it not be a reasonable condition for receiving additional bailout funds -- from TARP II -- that a firm cease its lobbying activities and campaign contributions (as well as any contributions it makes indirectly through its executives) at least until it fully compensates taxpayers what we have provided it?

(Emphasis added.) That last question is the key here. Recently, Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Olympia Snowe reintroduced their bill to do just that: ban TARP recipients from using TARP funds for lobbying and influence. The bill is S. 133 and would ban the use of TARP funds for lobbying expenses and campaign contributions and require TARP recipients to disclose to the Treasury Department "how emergency economic assistance is being used, including an explanation of how such funds have been allocated to stabilize financial markets and increase the availability of credit to consumers and businesses". The Treasury Department would then have to make these disclosures publicly available online.

This sounds like a good start for restraining certain types of lobbying spending around the bailout. In conjunction with this, real lobbying disclosure reform, requiring full disclosure and real time transparency, would go the full distance to help keep these abuses of influence down in the future.