Last night’s vote in the House of Representatives to extend the current tax rates marked an ironic end for the 111th House of Representatives. As unpopular as she has become, House speaker Nancy Pelosi did an extraordinary job of holding her caucus together for tough votes. However, last night the Democrats did something they hardly ever did during her four-year tenure as speaker: they split almost down the middle over the final tax provision. The final roll call vote had 139 Democrats voting in favor of the package while 112 voted against. From a Republican’s perspective, this is exactly what you want to see. Roll call votes that unite your side and divide the opposition are just what you want from a legislative perspective, and that’s exactly what the vote last night produced.

Interestingly, there were no clean ideological divisions on the Democratic side. For instance, liberals like Jim McDermott of Washington and George Miller of California voted against the package while Dennis Kucinich of Ohio and Jan Schakowsky of Illinois voted in favor of it. On the opposite side of the caucus, Walt Minnick of Idaho supported it while Charlie Melancon of Louisiana did not.