In floor votes, no legislator had a perfect record. Coming the closest were Rep. John Mathis, R-Vernal, 99.4 percent; Sen. Fred Fife, D-Salt Lake, 99.1 percent; Rep. Bradley Daw, R-Orem, 99 percent; and Rep. Tim Cosgrove, D-Murray, and Sen. Ross Romero, D-Salt Lake, both 98.9 percent.

Daw said that casting votes "is one of the reasons I was elected. I try to be there as much as I can." Daw said that his good attendance in his standing committee votes was, in part, good luck. "When I had to present one of my bills in another committee, my committee wasn't meeting or wasn't voting. Same with the floor votes — when I was up in the Senate on one of my bills, the House wasn't doing much (voting) work." But he does set his daily work schedule to be present as much as possible, Daw said.

Early payday

There is no attendance requirement for the 45-day general session. In fact, the 104 part-time legislators are each given a paycheck at the beginning of each session with all of their pay for the 45 days included. That's done because some lawmakers miss their regular private-employment paychecks for part or all of the session, so full legislative payment is appreciated, even mandatory, to enable some to serve.

Pay for attending the monthly interim legislative meetings — April through November — comes only if a legislator is present and signs a roll, so voting in interim is often higher than voting in the general session.

A chart of voting rates by all 104 members of the Legislature is available by clicking the PDF graphic above.

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