This is actually going to be a summary of blog posts that I have over at RIFuture.org dealing with roll call votes in some state legislatures, particularly with my home state of Rhode Island. Over the past few years, I’ve become increasingly interested in the bills that were being introduced, and watching the history of particular bills, as they worked their way through the process. My main attention was to how my state legislator voted on certain bills, and also the ones in which they introduced. Though the Rhode Island General Assembly tracks bills introduced by legislators in an easily searchable form online, it’s not so easy to track legislators’ voting records.
The RI Legislature, like in most states, doesn’t post the voting results by legislator... only a handful of legislatures do that. At best, states might post the results of a roll call vote by bill, or they’ll bury the votes somewhere in the journals (which I was forced to read if I wanted to see how the votes went). As I was reading the journals, I noticed that the only votes listed were those of the Yeas and Nays, but it never listed the legislators who missed roll call votes... which seemed to be a lot in most cases. So, seeing as I was keeping records of bills that were being introduced, I decided to do the same with the roll call votes. Here’s the outcome of roll call votes for RI state legislators as they pertain to bills/resolutions that came to a floor vote in 2007:
(Roll call votes on floor amendments and other motions are not listed in these tables. You can click on the links to get a list of all RI legislators in 2007)
2007 RI House Session
2007 RI Senate Session
Like any set of data, one needs to be cautious when interpreting that data (especially for particular legislators), and I’ll give you some examples.
• Rep. Crowley was battling an illness and most likely played a part in his missed roll call votes (later passed away in 2007)
• Rep. Williams garnished over 200 of her missed votes because she missed the last day of the regular session
• Rep. Williamson had an attendance record of 45P and 21A. All 21 of his absences occurred from Sessions 1-51, which means that in Sessions 52-66 he was present and in attendance. But yet over 200 of his missed votes took place in Sessions 52-66 when he was allegedly in attendance.
Now, there are few excuses for missing a vote, especially when the legislators’ power ultimately lies in their votes on behalf of their constituents; so it’s fair to say I was pretty disgusted with the outcome. But then I wondered whether it was par for the course, so I looked at other state legislatures in my own backyard – New England. As I was collecting the roll calls on other state legislatures, I noticed that most of them had their roll call votes all lumped in together so that in some circumstances, it was hard to distinguish between roll call votes on bills/resolutions and those that were other motions like floor amendments. So in order to avoid confusion I kept them all together as a whole, which in turn forced me to combine the RI legislator bill/resolution RC votes and amendment RC votes. Here are the totals for RI legislators:
And here’s how they stack up with other state legislatures:
I guess the ‘07 RI General Assembly was as bad as I thought. Both the RI House and Senate lead the number of missed roll call votes of the states I have listed with 16.34% and 12.75% respectively... in most cases, by large margins. It seems that other state legislators managed to make their votes count. Granted, my view is limited by those state legislatures, or citizen organizations, that post roll call votes online in some form or another... so I wonder – Whose state legislature misses the most votes?
And as atrocious as the number of missed roll call votes were, it probably wouldn’t have made a difference in the end. What do I mean by that? In 2007, the number of instances of floor votes for bills/resolutions in some form or another in the RI Legislature:
House (1,166 floor votes)-> 938 instances of a Roll Call Vote, 196 instances of a Voice Vote, and 32 instances of a Rising Vote
Senate (1,143 floor votes)-> 919 instances of a Roll Call Vote, 199 instances of a Voice Vote, and 25 instances of a Rising Vote
In all the instances of a Voice Vote or a Rising Vote, the result was that they always passed unanimously. In the instances of a roll call vote: House -> 597 passed unanimously (63.65% of 938) Senate -> 778 passed unanimously (84.66% of 919).
And out of a total of those 1,857 instances of a roll call vote on a bill/resolution in both the RI House and Senate, only 1 failed as a result... and it wasn’t even a full bill. You see, sometimes an RI legislator can request to have a section(s) on a bill voted on separately; and if the Leader of the chamber rules it is divisible, then a bill could have a RC vote on that section, and another one on the remainder of the bill. So the bill ultimately passed, but a particular section of it failed. So was this some hotly contested issue that failed with only a few votes to spare? No, it actually failed unanimously!
That means that 100% of the bills/resolutions that made a floor vote passed, and that some version of a bill/resolution that made a floor vote passed 99.96% of the time.
The cause of all this are the committees where the bills are referred to once a bill is introduced, and not requested for immediate consideration. Bills don’t live or die by the alleged people’s voice of the 75 Rep. in the RI House, or the 38 Sen. in the RI Senate. No, no, no. RI bills live or die in these committees... committees that have a select few members... members who are appointed by "the leadership"... "the leadership" that is selected by one man in each chamber.
Is this what democracy is, or what it has become? That even with a group that holds such power, dare I say absolute power, that they can’t test the strength of their own convictions even against something that they oppose, as to put it to an up-or-down vote? I’ve seen enough of this type of sh!t at the national level by both Republicans and Democrats, that we don’t need this crap locally.
But even with a supermajority, "leadership" can’t even show a true public stand worth any weight to such things as Voter Initiative, or any other number of positions whether you as a reader agree with a particular position or not. Shouldn’t we at least be able to see where legislators truly stand, instead of relying on press conferences, press releases, and forced fed sound-bites that really amount to no substance?
Perhaps the sound-bites and the fortitude of those convictions are as hollow as the space in the seats of the RI GA 16.48% of the time in the House, and 12.81% in the Senate. It’s Roll Call time; do you know where your state legislator is?
Links:
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Rhode Island – http://www.rilin.state.ri.us/
Maine -
House: http://janus.state.me.us/...
http://janus.state.me.us/...
Senate: http://www.state.me.us/...
New Hampshire - http://www.gencourt.state.nh.us/...
Vermont - http://www.leg.state.vt.us/...
Massachusetts -
House: http://www.mass.gov/...
Senate: http://www.mass.gov/...
North Carolina - http://www.ncleg.net/
North Dakota - http://web.apps.state.nd.us/...
Michigan – http://www.michiganvotes.org
Washington – http://www.washingtonvotes.org
Kentucky – http://www.kentuckyvotes.org