Some vote-skippers in the Legislature had excuses; others didn't
Among those without the excuses of being sick or party leaders, Rep. Mark Walker, R-Sandy, had the worst voting record in committees during this year's 45-day general session, which ended March 5. He cast just 56.5 percent of his possible committee votes. Why so low?
"I'm running for (state) treasurer. And I had to leave early a few days to attend to that campaign, like going to some county (GOP) Lincoln Day dinners," Walker said.
He also said that as a member of the House Rules Committee, he had to meet with other legislators, lobbyists and citizens about which bills would come out of Rules for floor consideration. Walker said he was also pulled out of committees for various other reasons, including preparing his own legislation and presenting his bills in other committees.
While Walker may have fared poorly in committee attendance, he did pass all three of the bills he sponsored in the 2008 session, a perfect 100 percent ranking.
The analysis shows that the typical legislator made it to three of every four votes in committee, and nine of every 10 on the floor. It shows, in this election year, who were the best attendees and the worst. But it also revealed some strange happenings. They include:
• Because of rules loopholes to accommodate legislative leaders, a surprising number of committee votes occur without a majority of committee members present. Sometimes as few as two members of a six-member committee were present for votes, but it was still considered a legal quorum.
• In half of all joint appropriations subcommittees votes, fewer than a majority of Senate members assigned to that committee were present. (Sometimes only one senator was present to represent the Senate in such budget votes). House members have long complained that poor attendance at such meetings by their Senate counterparts make it difficult to conduct business. Some budget chairmen have resorted to holding votes at only the last meeting or two of the session, making it easier to round up wayward senators for a quorum.
• The lowest voting percentages are by legislative leaders, who say they are often pulled away for meetings on individual important issues. The leaders' attendance in their assigned committees is often much worse than, say, regular members who are battling a serious illness, like cancer.
Truancy
While the overall voting percent of 91 percent on the floor and 78 percent in committee may sound good at first, consider that Utah law classifies public school students as "habitual truants," subject to court fines, if they are absent eight days a school year without excuse — or just 4 percent of all days possible.
Under that standard, 93 percent of Utah legislators could earn "unsatisfactory" citizenship grades for missing committee votes, and 73 percent could earn that for missing floor votes.
Legislative party leaders have the lowest voting rates in committee. In fact, they captured the 10 lowest rate spots out of the 104 total legislators.
Senate President John Valentine, R-Orem, had the lowest — making just 16.5 percent of his possible committee votes — but that was actually more than triple the 5 percent rate he achieved last year.
Next lowest this year was House Majority Leader David Clark, R-Santa Clara, at 25.4 percent, followed by House Majority Whip Gordon Snow, R-Roosevelt, at 33.7 percent and Senate Majority Leader Curt Bramble, R-Provo, at 36.9 percent.
Valentine said he puts himself on two budget committees and three standing committees, even though he knows he won't make most of those meetings.
"I'm needed at times to break a tie vote or make the difference in a close vote," even if all those missed meetings may look bad later, Valentine said. At least twice last session, Valentine said, he was needed in close standing committee votes.
In contrast, House Speaker Greg Curtis, R-Sandy, does not assign himself to any standing committees because he says he would miss most of those votes if he did. However, he is a member of the Joint Executive Appropriations Committee (where all leaders make budget decisions), and achieved a respectable 90 percent voting rate there.
Curtis said: "I know I'm too busy" with leadership duties "to make committees, so I don't put myself on them. Because of their small numbers, the Senate may need to have leaders on some committees. With 75 (House) members and 55 (Republicans) in our caucus, our leaders don't have that problem." The Senate has only 29 total members.
Clark said he tries to get out of leadership meetings early during the session so he can make some of his standing/budget committees, but often he can't. He still wants to be on those committees, however, because that gives him membership on like committees during the interim, where he says he rarely misses a meeting and he sees his participation as important.
To give an idea of how low committee voting by party leaders is, many were lower than the rate of Rep. Bud Bowman, R-Cedar City, who had heart surgery before this year's legislative session and later had a cancerous kidney removed just before the session ended. Even after his cancer surgery, Bowman showed up on the House floor for votes and still managed to make 67.9 percent of his committee votes.
Also, Rep. Carl Duckworth, D-Magna, is fighting multiple myeloma cancer. Yet he still made 69.1 percent of his votes, even though he had to miss a few days for his cancer treatments.
Some legislators who were not sick or in party leadership positions had lower rates than the ill Bowman and Duckworth.
Among them were Rep. Walker, making only 56.5 percent of his committee votes; Sen. Mark Madsen, R-Lehi, 59.4 percent; Rep. Stephen Clark, R-Provo, 63.5 percent; and Rep. Aaron Tilton, R-Springville, 64.4 percent.
Perfection
The analysis showed that it is possible to be nearly perfect in voting. Reps. Todd Kiser, R-Sandy, and Curt Webb, R-Logan, attended 100 percent of their committee votes.
Kiser also scored a rare double-double. Not only did he attend all of his committee votes, he managed to pass all of the six bills that he introduced this year — landing atop two of the lists measuring legislative work.
Kiser said he prepared his bills early, which meant he could attend his committees and make the required votes, instead of being in other committees presenting his bills.
"I learned from watching several successful lawmakers that you work hard during the interim, and it pays off during the (general) session," Kiser said. He also takes his committee work seriously and makes the effort to be there.
Nobody had a perfect voting participation rate on the House or Senate floor, where bills receive their final votes in each chamber. A few came close. Sen. Ross Romero, D-Salt Lake, was at 99.4 percent; Rep. Doug Aagard, R-Kaysville, was at 99.3 percent; and Reps. Chavez-Houck and Roger Barrus, R-Centerville, were at 98.9 percent.
Floor vote participation is generally high, with members averaging above 90 percent. There are no committee meetings scheduled during floor time, but lawmakers often walk off the floor to meet with lobbyists and constituents in the hallways outside of the House and Senate chambers. A bell rings when the House is taking votes, so members can hear it and try to get back on the floor to cast their votes.
The person with the lowest rate for floor votes had the excuse of serious illnesses. It was Bowman, who made only 51.5 percent of floor votes. Sen. Bill Hickman, D-St. George, a member of leadership as the Senate Rules Committee chair, was second lowest at 70.9 percent.
Third lowest was Sen. Chris Buttars, R-West Jordan, who was dogged by controversy this year, accused of making racist remarks on the floor. Buttars made only 72 percent of his floor votes. At the height of his problems toward the end of the session, Buttars missed several days of legislative meetings — not casting dozens of votes on the floor.
Fourth lowest was House Speaker Curtis at 72.7 percent. Interestingly, Curtis this year began scheduling meetings in his private office during floor sessions. For years, speakers and other leaders have scheduled private meetings in their offices during committee meetings but stayed on the floor, conducting those sessions. Curtis was off the floor, as it is called, with someone else conducting the floor sessions usually an hour or two in the mornings and often again in the afternoon floor sessions.
Curtis said for some reason a number of the hot issues in the 2008 Legislature had not "matured" before the session started, so he needed to take a personal interest in them — "to get them going" — toward resolution early in the 45-day session, when he was often off the floor in private meetings.
Loophole
Because of busy leaders, an interesting loophole exists in rules about how to achieve legal quorums in standing committees. Standing committees are not required to count party leaders when calculating whether a quorum is present.
So, for example, the Senate Workforce Services and Community and Economic Development Committee has six members — but three are party leaders and so exempt from quorum. So only two of the other three members need to be present to achieve a quorum. And two senators alone could do work.
That committee indeed did cast three votes on bills with just two members present. Also, six of every 10 votes conducted by that committee came with less than a majority of the full committee present.
The loophole allowed 100 votes overall on bills in standing committees without a majority of all members present. That was one of every 16 total votes in those committees.
Some of the standing committees with the highest percentage of such less-than-majority-present votes were the House Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice Committee, where 22 percent of all votes came without a majority of all members, and the Senate Revenue and Taxation Committee, where 21 percent of all votes did.
Some committees also had much better overall voting participation than others. The lowest rates were in the Senate Workforce Services, 56 percent; House Retirement and Independent Entities, 58 percent; and Senate Revenue and Taxation, 64 percent.
On the other end of the spectrum, the Senate Retirement and Independent Entities Committee had 100 percent voting participation (but only had a minuscule six votes); the House Judiciary Committee had 87 percent; and the House Public Utilities and Technology Committee had 86 percent.
Appropriations
House members have long complained that senators have poor attendance at their joint appropriations subcommittees, sometimes making it difficult to conduct business. (The joint appropriations committees have both House and Senate members on them. Those committees set budgets. The standing committees of the House and Senate operate only within those bodies, and standing committees take actions on bills, which become law if approved by both bodies.)
Statistics show that this year, half of the appropriations subcommittee votes occurred when fewer than half of Senate members were present.
That happened 100 percent of the time, for example, in the Natural Resources Appropriations subcommittee. It happened in 92 percent of the time in the Transportation, Environmental Quality and National Guard Appropriations subcommittee. It happened 83 percent of the time in the Higher Education Appropriations subcommittee.
Sometimes as few as just one Senate member was present in an appropriations subcommittee vote to represent that body (occurring after a legal quorum had been established, but some senators then left).
Just one senator voting happened nine times (out of 24 total votes affecting legislation) in the Executive Offices & Criminal Justice Appropriations subcommittee. It happened once on the Health and Human Services Appropriations subcommittee.
Senate President Valentine said that with nine budget subcommittees — all of which normally meet at the same time — and with only 29 senators, "It doesn't take a genius to see we don't have enough senators to adequately staff all those meetings. I've pushed for fewer (budget) committees."
But that would stack dozens of House members on fewer budget subcommittees, diluting representatives' individual votes, something House leaders won't accept, Valentine said.
So there are times when only one senator will be voting in a budget committee, but that's "the way the numbers work out," said Valentine.
House members, not surprisingly, had much higher overall voting participation rates in joint appropriations committees than did senators. The average for House members was 87 percent, compared to 71 percent for senators.
Party numbers
Of note, Democrats had slightly higher overall voting participation rates than did Republicans. The typical Democrat had a 93.8 percent rate on the floor, compared to 90.3 percent for Republicans. In committee, the rate for Democrats was 82.5 percent compared to 75.6 percent for Republicans.
This is in part because Democrats, having such small numbers, are not needed (or sometimes wanted) in private meetings to settle sticky issues, and have more free time to vote on the floor and in committees.
"Because of our fewer numbers (20 House Democrats to 55 House Republicans), our members take committee votes very seriously," said House Minority Leader Brad King, D-Price. "We love it when we get to a committee and see a number of the Republicans' chairs empty. If two or three of them don't show up, we can actually (control the committee vote and) make some decisions — we know this and take those opportunities when we can."
The House also had a higher voting participation rate than did the Senate. The typical House member had a 91.6 percent rate on the floor, compared to 90.4 percent for senators. In committee, the rate for the House was 79.2 percent, compared to 74 percent by senators.
E-mail: lee@desnews.com, bbjr@desnews.com
Recent comments
Rep Mark Walker's excuse does not fly with me. What kind of...
Concerned | April 1, 2008 at 2:26 p.m.
So where is the list alluded to early in the article. I'd love...
Karen | April 1, 2008 at 1:55 a.m.
How many of those on this list have been to the legislature during...
BBKing | March 31, 2008 at 11:04 p.m.
