The federal government's bailout of the auto industry cleared its first hurdle last night, passing the U.S. House on a vote of 237 to 170.

Kentucky's delegation split on the bill, with three U.S. Reps. breaking for it and three against:

District 1 - Ed Whitfield (R-Hopkinsville) - NO

District 2 - Ron Lewis (R-Cecilia) - YES

District 3 - John Yarmuth (D-Louisville) - YES

District 4 - Geoff Davis (R-Hebron) - NO

District 5 - Hal Rogers (R-Somerset) - NO

District 6 - Ben Chandler (D-Versailles) - YES

The divide on the vote for the $15 billion package to aid the ailing domestic auto industry was different in character to the October vote for a $700 billion bailout for the financial industry.

On the second attempt to pass that legislation, Chandler split from his fellow Democrat Yarmuth and opposed the $700 billion package.

For his part, Rogers voted in favor of the financial bailout, but not the auto bailout.

Yarmuth came to vote in favor of the $700 billion after initially opposing the package on an earlier vote. The Louisville Democrat penned a letter to constituents arguing it was an "awful choice" between "voting for a bill that I hate or doing nothing to stop an economic meltdown."

Whitfield released a statement touting his opposition to the latest industry bailout.

"First the government bailed out the housing industry, then the financial sector and now the automobile industry – where do we draw the line?” Whitfield said in the statement. “I believe free market principles and individual choice are what our government was founded on and what are needed now.”

The bill now moves on to a far tougher fight in the U.S. Senate, where both of Kentucky's U.S. Senators and many of their fellow Republicans have expressed doubts about the nature of the bill.