I really don't have anything to compare this against other than those mentioned in the article...but this seems excessively high. Like WAY high. I'm thinking I'd be pretty pissed off if I voted a guy into office, and he never showed up for his job. http://www.hillnews.com/news/052003/gephardt.aspx Gephardt skips 85% of House votes By Sam Dealey and Sarita Chourey Rep. Dick Gephardt (D-Mo.) has missed 162 votes in the House this year — 85 percent of the total — prompting Republicans to charge that he has abandoned his congressional duties in his pursuit of the presidency. The Republican National Committee (RNC) has seized on the absenteeism to point out that several of Gephardt’s missed votes have been on legislative and policy matters that are centerpieces to his campaign. In his closing statement at the South Carolina debate earlier this month, for example, Gephardt listed the creation of “an Apollo II program to make us independent of foreign oil in 10 years” as one of his top legislative priorities. Gephardt has missed every vote on energy-related issues this session. House records show Gephardt also missed votes on other issues that are frequent themes in his presidential candidacy, including welfare reform, human cloning, healthcare, homeland security, education and tax cuts. Commenting in the South Carolina debate that “people don’t vote,” Gephardt rued the “cynicism” about politics that “abounds” among voters. “We’ve got to have a president in this country, and I hope to be that president, who restores faith and hope in people that we can solve the major problems that this country faces,” he said. Other Democratic presidential aspirants also have missed votes, but to a lesser degree than Gephardt. Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) failed to add his voice in 63 instances this year, 34 percent of Senate votes. (Not included in this total are two votes he missed in February due to prostate surgery.) Last Thursday, when the Senate considered the House version of President Bush’s global AIDS initiative, Kerry used a floor debate to decry a provision in the legislation that required 33 percent of funds to be spent on abstinence education. “We should not tie the president’s hands ... I will support an amendment to strike this earmark.” Later in the day, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) proposed just such an amendment. Kerry missed the vote on the proposal, which failed 45-52. Other key areas in which Kerry has skipped votes include legislation on homeland and international security, education funding, and partial-birth abortion. Last week Kerry postponed a health care speech in Iowa to vote on the tax cut. Democrats said the missed votes have not interfered with their senatorial responsibilities. “All of the candidates have been here for all the votes where their vote was needed to win,” said Jay Carson, a spokesman for Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.). “As long as that remains the case, it’s not an issue.” But Republicans charged that missing votes amounts to dereliction of duty. “It’s not just votes they miss. They miss the negotiations, they miss the discussions,” said RNC spokesman Jim Dyke. “So when Gephardt goes out and talks about energy policy and how important it is, not only did he miss all the votes on energy legislation, but he missed being a part of the discussions that led to the legislation.” Dyke added, “The danger for all the candidates…is that they call for important initiatives on the campaign trail that are already under consideration in Congress and expose themselves to a great deal of hypocrisy.” Neither Kerry nor Gephardt returned calls seeking comment. Carson said Daschle has gone to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) for help in scheduling votes so that the Democratic presidential hopefuls can be present. “It’s common practice for leaders to work together to schedule votes that are advantageous for both parties,” said Carson. Other Democratic presidential hopefuls have also missed a number of votes. Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.) has missed 22 percent, or 40 votes this year. Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C.) has been absent from 12 percent, or 22 votes. Fulfilling campaign and representational duties is “just something you have to really work at,” Edwards told The Hill. “I always know what we’re voting on and what the issues are. If there’s an important vote, I am here. Period.” Sen. Bob Graham, (D-Fla.), who announced his candidacy earlier this month, has missed six percent of votes, a figure that does not include 16 votes in January from which he was absent due to heart surgery. Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) led the entire pack of Democratic hopefuls by missing only one roll call vote. As of Friday, there have been 191 House votes and 183 Senate votes in the108th Congress this year.
Amazing how the article doesn't give any %'s for prominent Republicans... of course they aren't running for President. Perhaps it does, but I'm just going by what you posted. I don't like the practice in any politicians, even if the vote wouldn't change anyway, because it gives a record on how you stand on the issues. These days it's hard not to take time off to try to raise the gigantic sums needed to make a run for the nomination of your party, much less the Presidency itself, so it's not too surprising. Personally, I think Gephardt is a chump regardless.
I know they have a good sense of what the vote is going to be before they vote. So, I can understand them skipping votes where they aren't needed anyway. Another thing I have to wonder is how many days do these votes equate to? If they talk about a bunch of stuff for a week and then vote on 50 items in one day, then obviously you're percentage will look bad if you have to miss that one day. It is also disquieting that they didn't list the absentee rate of a single Republican. I know it is about the Democratic primary, but listing some Republicans wouldn't have killed them.
Are there any Republicans even running in the primary that are in Congress? If so, I can understand them not listing any Republicans because all they listed were Presidential candidates. However, it really wouldn't have killed them to put in an average for all members. Who's to say that those numbers aren't unusual?
Actually, this is a pretty accurate assessment. From what I understand, they could have dozens of procedural votes on a given day, many of which pass with a large majority of the votes. It is rare for votes to be close and even rarer for politicians to be available for even a majority of them. Both Republicans and Democrats skip out on large numbers of votes. I remember reading that two of the worst voting records in the house were from Houston: DeLay and Jackson Lee - opposite ends of the spectrum poltically.
I looked this info up and you can find it in the links at the bottom of my post. In the House there are generally between 1-8 votes on a particular day. That is different in the Senate. They generally have several days with no voting then a couple of days of heavy voting. The sites also show everyone that is absent but you cannot look at the voting record of just one person over the course of the session. I don't really feel like going through the close to 400 votes to get absenteeism figures. They are there if you have a specific target in mind. But I am just too lazy to look through them. The thing about the article that concerns me the most is not that they miss votes but that they miss the discussions when the bills are presented. That is more frightening to me that they could be voting on something that they had no input on and the only input they are getting about it is what someone else(i.e. the party or their buddies) are telling them. It often probably has no bearing on what their respective constituents want or what is best for their region. http://clerk.house.gov/legisAct/votes.php http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/vote_menu_108_1.htm P.S. This is my first and quite possibly last post in the D&D forum. I stumbled in here by mistake and just happened to click on the article to see what it said. CK
it appears some of you interpreted from my post that i thought one party might have a monopoly on this kind of absenteeism. i do not think that.
I didn't think that. But the article does make me very suspicious because of the things they decide to not tell you. It sounds like it was written by the Republican party and not by a newspaper.
