It is all too common for important legislation to come before the Arkansas General Assembly and see several legislators not bother to cast a vote.
Occasionally, a member of the House of Representatives or Senate will have an excused absence, but even then they can vote if they really want to. A legislator who has an excused absence may vote on bills using a procedure called “pairing.” Pairing is where a legislator who is absent may have his or her vote paired with another legislator who is going to vote on the other side. Pairing your vote with an absent legislator on the other side is a courtesy among legislators.
But the large majority of missed votes occur when a legislator is recorded as present but doesn’t vote.
Sometimes during a vote, a legislator just sits in his or her seat without casting a vote. More often, a legislator will get up before the vote and go into one of the side rooms to conduct “urgent business.” Often, the urgent business is to get a cup of coffee or snack, or to go say “howdy” to a constituent. The House and Senate usually only meet a few hours or less in the afternoon, but for some reason legislators keep disappearing during the vote on controversial bills.
Occasionally, a legislator will vote “present,” which lets the legislator send the signal that the legislator really, really doesn’t want to vote on the issue, but wants people to know he or she was present and in the assigned seat.
EFFECT OF NOT VOTING
Not voting or voting “present” has the same effect as voting “No,” because they all work to deny a bill enough “Yes” votes to pass. Because they all have the same effect, sometimes a legislator who wants to kill a bill but not offend supporters will not vote instead of voting “No.” It is the coward’s way out.
Here is an example of an “I don’t want to offend anyone so I’m walking out and not voting” move. In 2013, the legislature passed two bills restricting abortion, but Governor Mike Beebe vetoed both bills. The Senate and House decided to try to override the veto. It had taken a majority vote to pass the bills in the first place and it would only take a majority to override the veto. Several Democrats who had originally voted for the pro-life bills didn’t want to offend Governor Beebe by voting to override his veto and didn’t want to vote “No” on the override because it would offend pro-life constituents. Many of the Democrats scurried out of the chamber so as not to be there for the vote. Thanks to a Republican majority the vetoes were overridden. The vote on one of the bills was 53 to 28, which meant 19 Representatives didn’t cast a vote. One poor Democrat Representative admitted to the media that he left to not offend Governor Beebe who was helping his city with an economic development project, and then tried to justify skipping the vote saying he “knew” there would still be enough votes to override the veto.
THE TIMID LEGISLATOR
Some legislators are less likely to vote when the bill is controversial, and the vote looks to be close. If you watch the display of votes in the House, you will start noticing that some Representatives frequently wait to vote until they are sure it won’t be a close vote. The timid want to avoid being the deciding vote and seek safety in numbers.
SCORING VOTES
Not voting has been such a common tactic to defeat a bill without having to vote “No,” that in an early scorecard of Conduit for Commerce, it gave a person who didn’t vote the same credit as a legislator who voted “No” on a bad bill. Conduit for Commerce no longer gives any credit when a legislator doesn’t vote.
POOR RECORD NOTICED NATIONALLY
Many conservatives are familiar with Club For Growth and its work to promote conservative legislation in Congress. The Club For Growth Foundation does scorecards on Congressional votes and does scorecards on some state legislatures as well. Because the foundation saw that failure to vote is so common in the Arkansas, in 2021 the foundation decided to list what percentage of the time each member of the legislature failed to vote.[i]
DIFFERENT ATTITUDE IN SOME OTHER STATES
Kansas is an example of a state that has a high expectation that state legislators will vote on the legislation before them. On some votes, a Kansas state legislator may avoid casting a “Yes” or “No” vote by saying “Pass,” meaning the legislator is not casting a vote. But Kansas also has a procedure that allows a small number of legislators to compel their colleagues to cast a “Yes” or “No” vote.
It only takes 10 of the 125 members of the Kansas House of Representatives to compel all members of the House to vote “Yes” or “No.” The procedure is known as a “call of the House.” In the Senate it is known as a “call of the Senate,” and it only requires the request of 5 of the 40 Senators.
A legislator who has a conflict of interest on the legislation may be excused, but the legislator must first satisfactorily explain the conflict to the members.
If a legislator is absent and a sufficient excuse is not given for the absence, the legislator can be sent for and taken into custody by the sergeant-at-arms.
In the Kansas House, refusal to vote when not excused is grounds for censure or expulsion. In the Kansas Senate, refusal to vote is contempt and the penalty is revocation of the senator’s privileges of membership until the contempt is purged.
If you are interested in reading more about the Kansas procedure, the description of the rule from the publication “Legislative Procedure in Kansas,” by the Kansas Legislative Research Department, appears below in the notes.[ii]
WHAT DO YOU THINK?
Not voting is a common practice in the Arkansas House of Representatives and Arkansas Senate. What do you think about their practice?
Does Arkansas need a rule similar to Kansas to require members of the General Assembly to vote?
Should your political party’s state convention adopt a plank in its platform requesting the Arkansas Senate and Arkansas House of Representatives to adopt rules requiring legislators to vote?
Conduit News depends on readers like you. Support our cause. Donate today.
[i] https://clubforgrowthfoundation.org/scorecard/arkansas/
[ii] “Legislative Procedure in Kansas,” Kansas Legislative Research Department, 2008, See Section 36 Final Action pages 88 and 89. https://www.kslegislature.org/li/s/pdf/kansas_legislative_procedure.pdf
“A “call of the house”, referred to in the Senate as a call of the Senate, is the method used in the Senate and House to require every member to vote on a measure. An exception is that a member who has a conflict of interest in the matter being voted upon may be excused from voting. Any member who so requests to be excused has five minutes to explain the reasons for the request. The question on excusing the member from voting is taken without debate and requires a twothirds majority. (The two-thirds requirement applies to the members present in the House and to the members voting in the Senate.) In the House, refusal to vote when not excused is grounds for censure or expulsion of the member. In the Senate, refusal to vote is regarded as contempt, the penalty for which is for the President to call the member before the bar of the Senate and to revoke the senator’s privileges of membership until the contempt is purged. There have been no instances in recent years of members refusing to vote when they were required by the rules to do so.
There are primarily three reasons for a call of the house: to enforce the attendance of a quorum, to compel members to record their vote publicly on controversial questions, and to attempt to secure passage of a bill which is in danger of failing for lack of a constitutional majority.
In the House, a call is ordered on the demand of any ten members at any stage of the voting on the final passage of the bill, on a motion to strike the enacting clause or on a motion to strike all after the enacting clause prior to the recording of the vote. The call may not be raised so long as ten members continue the demand until a reasonable effort has been exerted to secure absentees. When a call is demanded, the Speaker orders the doors of the House closed and directs that the roll be called, after which the names of the absentees are again called. If sufficient excuse is not given for the absence, a member may be sent for and taken into custody by the sergeant-at-arms or an assistant sergeant-at-arms and be brought before the bar of the House, where, unless excused by a majority of the representatives present, the member is to be reproved by the Speaker for neglect of duty. No motion to dispense with further proceedings under the call of the House may be entertained until the Speaker is satisfied that the sergeant-at-arms has made a diligent effort to secure the attendance of the absentees.
Before the announcement of the vote, a call of the Senate may be ordered upon the demand of five senators regarding a roll call on the passage of any bill or resolution, a motion to strike the enacting clause, or a motion to indefinitely postpone a bill. When a call is demanded, the procedure is as described above for the House.
The Senate rules state that no senator is allowed to vote unless the senator is seated in the senator’s assigned seat at the time of the vote. In practice, members sometimes answer roll call in the Senate from other places about the chamber, as long as there is no confusion and the members are recognized by the reading clerk. A representative cannot vote except at the voting station on the member’s desk, unless the member is in the chamber and is authorized by the presiding officer to vote. In the latter case, the presiding officer directs the Chief Clerk to so record the member’s vote.”
