Yes, this shows he has the bipartisan cred to get elected, but (to me) even more importantly, it demonstrates that he has the ability to really work across the aisle to get things done. Deeds doesn’t remain stuck in the patterns of black and white thinking, stubbornness, and inability/unwillingness to find common ground, that so often paralyzes other legislators.

Good, interesting analysis.

Posted by ChrEliz on 30 May 02009 @ 3am

I wonder what the numbers would look like for the two years before the 2008 session, when both Deeds & Moran were in the minority. (And I’m assuming that you took out the 2009 legislative session since Moran wasn’t there at all.)

Posted by Vivian J. Paige on 30 May 02009 @ 9am

I wonder what the numbers would look like for the two years before the 2008 session, when both Deeds & Moran were in the minority.

It shouldn’t make a particularly large difference, but I’ll check.

Here they are:

Moran: 63.6%
Deeds: 54.4%.

(And I’m assuming that you took out the 2009 legislative session since Moran wasn’t there at all.)

I didn’t because (as you can see with the above numbers) it doesn’t really make a difference over such a large number of copatronages. Ignoring 2009, Deeds was at 52% and Moran was at 61%—basically the same rate as when including 2009.

There is a noteworthy aspect to these numbers. Moran’s numbers are actually quite a bit higher than Deeds when controlling for the number of legislators of each party in each body. Since the House is majority Republican, the magic number for bipartisan copatroning isn’t 50% (in the 2009 session), but 53%. In the Senate, the Democratic control is at 52.5%. In light of that, we can see that Moran’s patronage is actually quite a bit more partisan than Deeds, particularly when one factors in the leftward drift of the House in the period measured. With some back-of-the-envelope math, it seems to me that Moran’s adjusted numbers are getting up towards 70%, while Deeds are just about right at 50%.

Again, that’s neither good nor bad, just a fact that folks can interpret as suits their view of bipartisanship.

Posted by Waldo Jaquith on 30 May 02009 @ 12pm

How is measuring a pool of co-patrons equivalent to determining the degree of bipartisanship on the part of either candidate? Wouldn’t it have more to do with which candidate is introducing legislation more appealing to the Republicans? Given that Creigh is more conservative than Brian I would expect he would find agreement more often from Republicans. However, your analysis also does not take into account the respective positions of each candidate within the legislature. Brian was the Democratic Caucus chair and Creigh was not. I haven’t bothered to see just how much legislation each generated; however, given that one of Brian’s roles in the GA was to BE the face of the Democratic party, it seems odd to announce that he is less bipartisan than someone who did not occupy the same position.

It would be interesting to see the size of the pool on which you relied for your analysis.

Posted by Catzmaw on 30 May 02009 @ 3pm

Catzmaw,

I may be wrong about this, but I believe Creigh pre-dated Brian as House Caucus Chair, before he was elected to the Senate.

Posted by Curious on 30 May 02009 @ 5pm

How is measuring a pool of co-patrons equivalent to determining the degree of bipartisanship on the part of either candidate? Wouldn’t it have more to do with which candidate is introducing legislation more appealing to the Republicans?

If you can suggest a better metric to determine bipartisanship than the rate at which a legislator cosponsored bills with members of the other party, I’m all ears. This is, I think, a really, really excellent source of data.

Note that looking solely at who is voting for each legislators’ bills is actually a pretty lousy approach, because so few bills make it out of committee, and those bills that make it to the floor generally pass unanimously or close to it. The number of meaningful data points for each legislator are minute. (See my explanation of party loyalty stats for an explanation of why that’s so.)

Given that Creigh is more conservative than Brian I would expect he would find agreement more often from Republicans.

Congratulations, you’ve restated the last paragraph of my blog entry. :)

However, your analysis also does not take into account the respective positions of each candidate within the legislature. Brian was the Democratic Caucus chair and Creigh was not.

I’m puzzled as to why you think that I don’t take that into account. I certainly do. But that said, I as I explained, Brian Moran’s copatronages are only slightly north of the norm—so there’s nothing in the data that show that his position had anything to do with his copatronage habits.

It would be interesting to see the size of the pool on which you relied for your analysis.

Every single bill that has been introduced into the legislature in the past four years, and every single copatron of every single one of those bills. There are many thousands of data point for every legislator. It’s the single richest source of data about legislator behavior that I’ve ever encountered or imagined.

Posted by Waldo Jaquith on 30 May 02009 @ 6pm

I view it more as Moran having the credibility for enacting a progressive agenda. That’s what we want as Virginia’s future. Now, to get there, we need a stronger Democratic majority in the Senate and to defeat a handful of Republican delegates; but I’d much rather defeat them and enact a progressive agenda than work with them in the status quo.

Posted by Jerome Armstrong on 30 May 02009 @ 10pm

And that’s a good thing because…?

Give me a red, white and blue progressive that rails against the Marriage Amendment every time.

Posted by Mimi Schaeffer on 31 May 02009 @ 10pm