Cloture Votes in the Senate
A cloture vote is by definition one designed to bring debate to an end. In the US Senate, a cloture vote is used to end a filibuster by other Senators. To be successful in ending the filibuster, a minimum of 60 Senators must support the cloture motion. The plot below shows the number of cloture votes in the Senate over the last 20 years.
Not all cloture votes consist of straight party line votes where Democrats seek to filibuster an item and Republicans are seeking a cloture motion to end the filibuster or vice versa. The data and chart below shows the total number of cloture votes along with the number of votes where 60% or more of one party supported the cloture motion and 60% of the other party voted against the cloture motion.
The number of cloture votes that is heavily partisan is an even smaller number. The data and chart below show the same votes, but with 80% of the party members supporting and opposing the cloture motion. What can be seen is that there were heavily partisan atmospheres after the Republicans took the majority in 1995, and again after the Democrats took the majority in 2007.
