Many other party leaders besides Valentine, Bramble and Becker compiled among the lowest voting averages, including:

• House Rules Chairman Stephen Urquhart, R-St. George, had the worst floor voting rate in the Legislature: 61 percent, meaning he missed two of every five votes. He also had the 10th worst rate for voting in committee: 42.2 percent.

• Curtis had the second-worst floor voting rate, 62.3 percent. He had no standing committee assignments. Curtis was often off the floor in private tax and budget meetings this year.

• House Majority Leader David Clark, R-Santa Clara, had a 76.4 percent rate on the floor, fifth worst in the Legislature, and a 34.8 percent rate in committees for seventh worst. Clark took the lead in the Legislature's final days to work out a tax cut/tax reform package with the Senate and governor.

• Assistant Majority Whip Brad Dee, R-Washington Terrace, made 21 percent of committee votes, third lowest among legislators.

• House budget chairman Ron Bigelow, R-West Valley, made 27.5 percent of committee votes for fourth worst.

• Senate budget chairman Lyle Hillyard, R-Logan, made 31.6 percent of committee votes for fifth worst, and 78.1 percent on the floor, ninth worst in the Legislature.

Other circumstances

Valentine and Bramble said that the 2007 session was especially hard on elected and appointed members of leadership.

"We had a number of budget-setting meetings, tax-cut meetings," among GOP leaders, said Valentine, who has served in the Legislature nearly 20 years. Those meetings took leaders away from floor and committee votes.

Senate and House Rules Committee chairs — Urquhart in the House and Sen. Bill Hickman, R-St. George, in the Senate — were also missing votes as they put together work for the daily meetings of those committees, so both had low voting rates.

House budget chairman Bigelow and Senate budget chairman Hillyard missed a number of votes as they were meeting behind the scenes putting together the huge $11 billion state budget bills.

And there were some extenuating circumstances for a few lawmakers' poor voting showing. For example, Rep. Bud Bowman, R-Cedar City, a veteran legislator who routinely attends most of his meetings, had a low voting percentage this year because of his wife's illness, which required that he be home part of the time.

Three legislators did manage to have perfect attendance for committee votes on bills: Reps. Jack Draxler, R-Logan; Carl Duckworth, D-Magna; and Lynn Hemingway, D-Holladay. Draxler and Hemingway are freshmen.