Not since the vote in December 1998 to impeach President Bill Clinton has a roll call in Congress drawn as much attention as the initial House rejection this year of President Bush’s plan to save the nation’s credit industry. From traders on Wall Street to bankers on Main Street, as well as in Europe and Asia, the world watched House vote 674 with the same intensity usually reserved for celebrity deaths, World Cup finals or highway car chases. You can even find video of it on YouTube.

After the vote was gaveled to a close at 205-228, the Dow Jones Industrial Average plummeted, losing the most points in one day in its 112-year history. At the same time, on radio and television talk shows and on blogs and other Internet forums, average Americans — who had decried the administration’s $700 billion asset-buying plan as an unwarranted bailout of big banks — cheered the outcome.

House leaders had scheduled the vote on the hastily written bill (HR 3997) just one day after they reached agreement on its details with their counterparts in the Senate and with Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. and other administration officials. They pleaded their case to the rank and file: Without this bill, leaders insisted, the economy could fall into the deepest recession in 75 years. At the same time, phones and e-mail boxes on the Hill were carrying a different message from very angry constituents: Say “no” to the bailout.

“I don’t know that they get much tougher than this,” Minority Leader John A. Boehner , R-Ohio, said in his floor speech preceding the vote.

The political, economic and historic consequences of this roll call were enormous, and it easily qualified as one of the 24 key roll call votes of the year for Congress. Indeed, two others also were on the bailout issue: the Senate’s vote Oct. 1 to pass a revised version (HR 1424) and the House vote Oct. 3 (four days after the first vote) to clear that measure.

This was a year in which the downturn in the economy dictated the congressional agenda more than any other factor, including party or presidential politics. Nine of the House and Senate roll calls chosen by Congressional Quarterly editors as key votes of the second session of the 110th Congress were on measures intended to boost some sector of the economy.

Two of those — one each in the House and Senate — occurred early in the year on a bill (HR 5140) to give $600 in rebates to most taxpayers. Lawmakers cast their votes for the legislation in the hopes that it would be enough to spur consumer spending and stave off recession. But by summer, the extent of decline in the housing market had become clearer, and Congress agreed — somewhat reluctantly — to give the Treasury Department the authority (HR 3221) to buy the assets and stocks of the two giant mortgage financing companies, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Weeks later, Treasury used that authority and put them into conservatorships despite earlier assertions that it might not need to go to that well.

Then in September, Paulson traveled to the Hill once again, pleading with House and Senate leaders to help him rescue the financial services industry, which was at risk of being choked to the point of collapse by unsellable mortgage-related assets. The rescue plan for which Paulson was seeking congressional authority was unprecedented in size and intent, and lawmakers — especially in the House — found themselves torn between a potential economic crisis and the reality of vocal constituent opposition.

The Senate vote to pass the revised bailout was preceded by a vote to substitute new language into an unrelated shell bill. Senators cast their vote on the substitute from their desks, a formality generally reserved for the most serious of roll calls such as the impeachment of a president. Two days later, the House again voted on the measure. By then, the economic picture had changed so much that 58 members switched their votes from “nay” to “yea.” The president signed the bill into law less than two hours after the final House vote.

The final two key votes took place in the December lame-duck session. This time the group in distress was the nation’s automakers, and congressional Democrats had negotiated with the White House a measure (HR 7321) that would make available a $14 billion short-term loan, with conditions, for General Motors Corp., Chrysler LLC and Ford Motor Co. The House went along with the deal on a party-line vote, but Senate Republicans could not swallow another bailout package and leaders eventually gave up.

With the economy continuing to weaken and the current recession entering its second year, the desire to stimulate growth, protect workers and generally reverse course is sure to lead to key votes in the next Congress. Democratic leaders already are working on a broad, expensive stimulus bill they hope to clear in time for President-elect Barack Obama to sign immediately after his Jan. 20 inauguration. And lawmakers have promised to take a look at broader and longer-term aid packages for ailing industries such as the carmakers.

Of course, votes on economic issues were not the only ones that drew attention in 2008. Three of the key votes from the most recent session were chosen because they completed years-long efforts by Democrats to pass legislation on some of their priorities. With their new majority achieved in 2006, Democrats found the necessary support at the leadership level to clear bills on mental health parity, genetic discrimination and the first reauthorization of Amtrak in a decade.

A handful of key votes represented attempts by lawmakers to separate themselves from President Bush. In some of those roll calls, members of Congress — as always, looking ahead to November — chose to go against the administration in hopes that their votes would count with constituents back home. Nonetheless, in other instances, particularly those related to foreign affairs and national security issues, Bush won.