Casting Ballots Often a Race to the Floor for Lawmakers

WASHINGTON — Hundreds of times every year, a blaring bell rings out across the congressional office buildings, the sound seeping from the hallways to the private meeting spaces, even into the restroom stalls. Simultaneously, scores and scores of pagers--strapped to lawmakers’ belts or stuffed into their purses--erupt into a symphony of sound.

All the noise can only mean one thing: It’s time for another vote.

For 15 minutes after the bell first sounds, members of Congress must make the long trek from their private offices to the floor of the House, pull out a special voting card and insert it in a slot in the congressional voting machines.

Last year alone, there were 867 votes, nearly double the typical number of ballots a decade ago. This year’s total is expected to exceed even that.

Through it all, Ventura County’s two congressmen netted voter participation rates in excess of 90%, a task that requires juggling their meetings, telephone calls, strategy sessions and personal lives to get to the floor in time--whether it’s an early morning vote on accepting the previous day’s congressional record or a late evening ballot on an anti-terrorism bill.

So often are members of Congress called on to cast a ballot--a dozen or more times on some busy days--that it’s sometimes difficult for them to keep track of the issue at hand. To prevent confusion, congressional aides follow the action on C-SPAN to keep their bosses up to date, and it is not uncommon to hear a congressman asking a colleague on the way to the floor: “So, what’s the question?”

For Californians and other far-flung lawmakers, simple geography complicates the act of voting.

Many members fly home at week’s end and return just in time for the first vote of the week on Monday or Tuesday--if the plane is on time, that is, or the schedule is not suddenly altered.

“There have been a couple times when an airplane got delayed and I was stuck on the plane,” said Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley), who keeps track of his voting percentages and prides himself on not missing significant matters.

“If you are going to miss a vote, you don’t want it to be a key vote or a close matter that is going to change the history of the country,” Gallegly said. “The bottom line is what do I do to be the best representative of the 23rd Congressional District. Voting is one aspect of how conscientious you are about the job.”

Last year, Gallegly voted 93% of the time, a drop from previous years that he blamed on his work on immigration legislation. He did make it to the floor for some votes on immigration earlier this year even though it required leaving the hospital early after suffering from severe dehydration.

Ventura’s other lawmaker, retiring Rep. Anthony C. Beilenson, made it to 99% of the ballots in 1995, which was the best participation rate of his career.

In the late 1980s, the Woodland Hills Democrat started off one term by missing the first 10 votes--the result of a last-minute change in the schedule.

Beilenson had been lunching with his wife, aware that he had to get to the floor for an afternoon vote on a package of appropriations bills. But the bills were split up and the series of votes moved forward, catching Beilenson and some others by surprise.

“Most of us try very hard to make all the votes,” Beilenson said, explaining that it is not uncommon for congressmen to miss a vote while actually standing on the floor of the House engrossed in a discussion with a colleague.

Although Beilenson made the trek from his office to the Capitol almost without error last year, hustling to the House has become a bit more of a chore for some Democrats since the GOP took over the agenda.

“I really think that a lot of time is wasted flying back and forth to Washington and running to the floor to keep getting voted down,” Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles) said last year after Republicans had rammed initiative after initiative through the House.

No area lawmaker has dropped to the voting levels of former Rep. Craig Washington (D-Texas), who closed out his career in 1994 by missing 403 of 497 votes, for a participation rate of 19%.

When asked about his absences, Washington explained that he could best serve his constituents by staying away from insignificant votes. After he lost his attempt for reelection, the congressman virtually stopped voting at all.

The National Taxpayers Union, a congressional watchdog group, was so furious at the practice that they filed an ethics complaint against then-House Speaker Thomas Foley (D-Wash.) for not enforcing a little-known law that calls for docking a congressman’s pay for unexcused absences.

Most of the time, missing a vote is no big deal. The absence is simply recorded by the clerk of the House, duly noted in the Congressional Record and that’s that. Lawmakers, in fact, can add a statement to the record explaining their views for posterity, even if they missed the actual vote.

But missed votes do pop up at election time, with challengers sometimes touting them as evidence that the incumbent is not up to the job. And then there are the missed votes that affect public policy.

Last year, for instance, the Democrats successfully fought off a GOP effort to severely limit the powers of the EPA. The vote was a nail-biting 212 to 206.

But the Republicans turned the tables three days later by calling for a recount and coming up with a 210-210 tie, one ballot short of the majority needed to save the EPA.

Environmentalists were furious at Rep. Calvin Dooley (D-Visalia), who changed his vote between the two ballots. But they were equally steamed at the dozen or so Democrats not around for the Monday evening vote--including Rep. Pete Stark (D-Hayward), who was attending a Lamaze class with his pregnant wife; Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-Los Angeles), at home tending a sick infant, and former Rep. Walter Tucker (D-Los Angeles), whom aides said was delayed by a late plane.

None of those excuses would have held up the late Rep. William H. Natcher (D-Ky.). During his long career, he made voting an obsession, landing in the Guinness Book of World Records for casting 18,401 consecutive votes over 40 years.

Natcher’s final four votes were cast from a stretcher while suffering from congestive heart failure in 1994.

For Natcher, never missing a vote was a point of pride. He once turned down a chance to accompany then-President Jimmy Carter on a trip to Kentucky because he did not want to miss a vote. He flew back and forth from Kentucky to Washington daily for two weeks when his wife was hospitalized, unwilling to miss a vote.

Critics said Natcher’s obsession distracted him from the many other parts of the job.

“Voting is the single most important thing you do,” said the chief of staff for one San Fernando Valley congressman. “But there are times when you just can’t be two places at once and you have to make a judgment call. Is meeting with constituents less important than an insignificant vote?”

Toward the end of his life, even Natcher counseled young lawmakers to intentionally miss a vote early on in their careers so they do not have to worry about a streak. He confessed that his record became a burden hanging around his neck. “I wouldn’t say it’s an anvil--but it’s something similar,” he once told The Times.

California’s newest congresswoman apparently took that advice to heart.

Rep. Juanita Millender-McDonald (D-Carson) missed her very first vote just two days after she was sworn in on April 16 this year. It was a procedural motion on the anti-terrorism bill.

“I was unavoidably detained with constituents,” she later explained.