Can a Senator or Congressional Representative do their job as a legislator if they never show up for work? Ask the ten legislators currently running for President. Each has continued to collect their $165,200 salary while missing votes during the current Congress:
- John McCain has missed 218 votes (53.3%)
- Joseph Biden has missed 146 votes (35.7%)
- Christopher Dodd has missed 140 votes (34.2%)
- Barack Obama has missed 139 votes (34.0%)
- Sam Brownback has missed 134 votes (32.8%)
- Duncan Hunter has missed 321 votes (28.8%)
- Tom Tancredo has missed 311 votes (28.0%)
- Ron Paul has missed 276 votes (24.8%)
- Hillary Clinton has missed 76 votes (18.6%)
- Dennis Kucinich has missed 126 votes (11.3%)
Federal law requires the Secretary of the Senate and the Chief Administrative Officer of the House to deduct the pay of congress members who are absent without just cause (and, no, running for President is not a valid excuse). Each of these candidates should refund the portion of their salaries that were due to campaign related absences.
The cost to the taxpayer, though, is less important than the fact that the people of each of the states and congressional districts are not been properly represented by the legislators they elected. This, in my opinion, is a significant flaw in our electoral system.
One legislator who would disagree is Sen. John Kerry. While he and his running mate (John Edwards) missed many votes during their campaign, Kerry's staff dismissed it as irrelevant:
Kerry campaign spokesman Michael Meehan said the senator has fulfilled his legislative obligations fully while on the campaign trail by maintaining regular contact with his staff in Washington D.C. and Massachusetts.
"In the age of telecommunications, Sen. Kerry is in daily contact with his chief of staff,'' Meehan said. "Voting is just one small part of being a U.S. senator.''
Voting is just a small part of being a Senator? What do they consider the big part to be? Hobnobbing with lobbyists? Raising funds for re-election? It’s not as if Kerry was personally responding to letters from his constituents. He has staffers to those types of duties. In fact, voting is one of the few activities that his staff can’t do for him.
Kerry’s excuse was that his vote wouldn't have changed any outcomes on the issues he missed. Besides being a rather anti-democratic excuse, it's also irrelevant. He wasn’t elected to 'change the outcomes" on particular votes; he was elected to represent the people of his state. When he failed to vote he failed to do his job.
To be fair, we can’t really expect Kerry or any of the current crop of legislator-candidates to run a successful Presidential campaign while fulfilling all of their legislative duties. So what is the solution? Replace any legislators who want to run for higher office -- at least temporarily.
According to the 17th Amendment to the Constitution, the states have the right to fill such temporary vacancies:
When vacancies happen in the representation of any state in the Senate, the executive authority of such state shall issue writs of election to fill such vacancies: Provided, that the legislature of any state may empower the executive thereof to make temporary appointments until the people fill the vacancies by election as the legislature may direct.
Though the Amendment doesn’t specify what constitutes a 'vacancy" the U.S. Code does:
The time for holding elections in any State, District, or Territory for a Representative or Delegate to fill a vacancy, whether such vacancy is caused by a failure to elect at the time prescribed by law, or by the death, resignation, or incapacity of a person elected, may be prescribed by the laws of the several States and Territories respectively.
A clause should be added to this code that allows the states to provide a temporary replacement for any legislator that is running for President. This would allow the Senator or Congressman to concentrate on their campaign and still have a job to return to if they are not elected. And, more importantly, it would provide the people of a state the proper representation they are due in Congress.
John McCain has missed 218 votes (53.3%)
Duncan Hunter has missed 321 votes (28.8%)
This seems like fuzzy math.
I suspect that Senators find a way to vote for critical issues -- especially if they know the vote will be close.
One is a Congressman and the other is a Senator.
I'm sure you'll figure it out.
Good points.
Who's idea was it to start the campaign nearly 2 years out anyway?
That's a pretty impressive number for McCain, BTW.
I completely agree--up to the last paragraph. Nothing about our electoral system should ensure "a job to return to if they are not elected" to higher office. If our representatives had to take frequent breaks as private citizens, rather than moving in a typical career line "up the ladder" of elective office, they might have a more practical, realistic view of the world. The average elected leader today is about as isolated from the common person as the so-called "ivory tower academic."
I have no problem with people campaigning for REelection while executing their responsibilities. I have a BIG problem with people campaigning for higher office with the subtext of "oh, well, if I lose, at least I'm also on the ballot for Senator/Congressman." It's time these people experience the same uncertainty in life the rest of us do.
The cost to the taxpayer, though, is less important than the fact that the people of each of the states and congressional districts are not been properly represented by the legislators they elected. This, in my opinion, is a significant flaw in our electoral system.
That's kind of a strange statement. Why are the voters in those districts unable to determine whether or not they are being 'properly represented'? What magical source of wisdom do you have that knows better than they do?
Voting is just a small part of being a Senator? What do they consider the big part to be? Hobnobbing with lobbyists? Raising funds for re-election? It’s not as if Kerry was personally responding to letters from his constituents. He has staffers to those types of duties. In fact, voting is one of the few activities that his staff can’t do for him.
To be fair the Senate used to meet only a tiny fraction of the year.
Kerry’s excuse was that his vote wouldn't have changed any outcomes on the issues he missed. Besides being a rather anti-democratic excuse, it's also irrelevant. He wasn’t elected to 'change the outcomes" on particular votes; he was elected to represent the people of his state. When he failed to vote he failed to do his job.
Again he represents the people by being re-elected, nothing else. If the people find he no longer represents them then they vote him out...even if he made all the votes that doesn't change. DC, you may be aware, has non-voting delegates. Do they represent their people? If so then how is voting the sum of representation?
Another problem is that you treat all votes as equal. Is missing 9 votes on things like "Nov 16th is National Cheese Day" and making the vote on the Iraq war really a vacant Senator while someone who does the reverse is a model of representing his people? Additionally most of the work of the Senate is not in the actual votes but the writing of the laws which take place in committee. It is there that a Congressperson's work is actually felt and that's nothing new. Judging that, though, is not so easy as coming up with a brain-dead metric like what % of votes did the guy make. The solution? The founders already came up with it, let the voters do the job evaluations*.
* Ok, they applied that to the House originally but the Senate was added not too long later.
Another problem with Joe's proposal is that it essentially biases the Presidential election away from Senator's and towards Governors. Since Gov's will not be required to have someone else fill their seats while they run for President it will be less "costly" for the parties to run Govs rather than Senators or House members.
This is especially true since the Senators and House members running for President are likely to be powerful and successful members of their party. Even if their 'replacements' are members of the same party your essentially asking a party that has Senator's running to handicap itself.
It seams already Gov's have an advantage, for whatever reason, in running for President (just about all of the Presidents since LBJ have been gov's...except maybe Bush I). Why make the playing field any more biased towards them?
Boonton:
Your latter objection is fixed easily enough: make a rule such that if you hold any elective office at any level of government, you're required to resign from it before you run for another.
Boonton:
The same logic would apply to a governor as well (you just couldn't use the US Code as part of the argument). Why should I pay somebody to be governor of my state when they're off running for some other office instead of, you know, governing?
Your latter objection is fixed easily enough: make a rule such that if you hold any elective office at any level of government, you're required to resign from it before you run for another.
So now we have to tell States how they are to run their Governorships? Nice concept of Federalism here.
Why should I pay somebody to be governor of my state when they're off running for some other office instead of, you know, governing?
Why do you vote for people who are running for office? When people do this and fail to you punish them by voting against them in the next election? If you don't do this then what do you think you have a right to complain about?
Isn't the answer to the question of missed votes technology? I can not understand why a vote by an elected representative must be delivered on the floor of the House or Senate. There must be a way for a representative to have a vote recorded, while not in the building. Let's catch up to technology and make this possible.
Ron Paul gives all of his Congressional pay to charity anyway, probably a more efficient use of the funds then throwing it back to the Federal bureaucracy, so I'm fine with that. Apparently so are the people in his district, as they keep reelecting him.
Short list of (accumulating) reasons why I don't like this idea:
1. Voters should decide for themselves whether or not a running legislator is doing a bad job of representing them.
2. The idea is biased towards executives who want to run rather than legislators. 'Correcting' this means telling states how to run themselves.
3. Voting is only a fraction of what a legislator does and probably isn't the most important stuff.
4. Campaigns already seem too long and too expensive. Making them full time jobs now institutionizes that trend.
5. It's not like there's dozens of great laws that are sitting around for lack of legislators to vote on them. Laws that pass with lots of missing votes are usually of very minor importance.
6. Not all votes are the same, "National Cheese Day" != "Declare War on Iran".
Boonton
2. The idea is biased towards executives who want to run rather than legislators. 'Correcting' this means telling states how to run themselves.
No, it's not!
The federal government requiring a person to not be in a current elective office while running for president is not telling the states anything. It's just a requirement to run for office.
But I agree with 1, 4, 5 and 6.
Not sure of your logic for 3. This is a representative government. They vote in our place. What is more important in their job then that?????
Mmmm...this is a tempest in a teacup compared to Huckabee's having secured the parole in 1997, while he was governor of Arkansas, of a rapist who then murdered a woman, ostensibly because he either believed in or wanted to coddle the anti-Clinton lunatics, and then has done nothing about it but lie about it since then.
Where is there any harm in these missed votes?
The chief business of representing constituents is carried out off the floor of the Senate, by staff, who work around the clock. If you need your small business loan vouched for, or expedited, your senator's being on the floor will not speed the action in any way (and may delay it). If your Income Tax Refund doesn't make it, it's someone in constituent relations who calls the IRS and tracks it down.
The Senate has procedures by which absent senators may pair with another senator voting the opposite way on a bill in essence to excuse the absence -- a "live-pair" involves a senator not voting on an issue to avoid running up the tally for an absent colleague voting the other way. This procedure was made necessary by the size of the country, which makes it impossible for western MCs to visit their home state or district at key times without missing votes (California is pretty bad, but imagine Hawaii or Alaska).
And, every vote Tom Tancredo misses, the nation gets a little better, a little more healthy, a little stronger.
Where's the harm?
The federal government requiring a person to not be in a current elective office while running for president is not telling the states anything. It's just a requirement to run for office.
Telling states that they must assign a temporary replacement governor if their governor chooses to run for Congress or the Presidency isn't telling them what to do? Read Joe's post again, its whole premise here is that the actual voters cannot judge whether or not they are getting proper representation...instead proper representation is being judged on a simplistic metric.
I see where you're going with your argument. I think technically you're probably right in that the Constitution could restrict who runs for office without technically violating state's rights but I think it violates the spirit of the matter.
Not sure of your logic for 3. This is a representative government. They vote in our place. What is more important in their job then that?????
No they represent us in our place. That means they sit on committees, question witnesses, write reports, make speeches, write laws, approve appointments and so on. All of these things are very important and in many ways probably more important than many votes. A Senator or Rep. who did none of these things but showed up for every single vote, IMO, would be a very poor Congressperson.
Mmmm...this is a tempest in a teacup compared to Huckabee's having secured the parole in 1997, while he was governor of Arkansas, of a rapist who then murdered a woman, ostensibly because he either believed in or wanted to coddle the anti-Clinton lunatics, and then has done nothing about it but lie about it since then.
Indeed, I didn't mention it yet because I'm savoring the GOP having its own 'Willie Horton' moment if he is the nominee. Not only did Huckabee help secure parole for him, he even wrote him a letter congratuating him for getting. He ignored his own advisors who warned him that many of the 'facts' he had gotten from a tabloid TV show were wrong.
A while ago Joe had a post about modern conservatives caring less about facts and more about having their 'worldview' confirmed. Well here's the happy result of that, people die. Thanks GOP, thanks JOe.
Hmmm....
all of your evidence is fuzzy and
this article seems kind of pointless
considering your not going to change
anything.
Have fun writeing for the
Most pointless place.
Is all the articles like this?
Pitiful.
failure to elect at the time prescribed by law, or by the death, resignation, or incapacity
which of these do you think applies to the scenario given? incapacity is the only option, but still seems a stretch to me.
still, considering the work they're up too, i'd just as soon 100% missed 100%.
go ron paul!
thanks for the GREAT post! Very useful...