While Michigan lawmakers in general missed five times more votes in the state’s Legislature this year than were missed last year, the delegation representing Michigan’s Great Southwest was very close to flawless with only one exception.
According to information compiled by Jack McHugh, Editor of MichiganVotes.org, a project of the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, Michigan’s 38 senators and 110 representatives missed 3,791 roll call votes in 2020. The compilation is called, appropriately, the Missed Votes Report.
While three senators and three representatives each missed 50 or more votes in 2020, 12 senators and 60 representatives missed no votes this year and they have great company from the local delegation.
Lawton State Senator Aric Nesbitt was one of those 12 with zero votes missed, while his Bainbridge Township colleague, Senator Kim LaSata only missed 1 vote out of the 1,002 votes taken in the Michigan Senate this year.
Over at the House of Representatives, Watervliet State Rep Pauline Wendzel, Niles State Rep Brad Paquette and Casco Township’s Mary Whiteford all were flawless, voting on every single issue in the 1,027 State House votes taken over the course of the year. Mattawan’s Beth Griffin was the lone rep from the region with a less than stellar report, having missed 12 of those votes over the year.
State Rep Steve Marino, a Republican from Harrison Township turned out the worst record of the year, missing 303 votes, while on the Senate side of the Legislature, Senator Adam Hollier, a Detroit Democrat scored the most missed votes at 102.
The 3,791 missed votes in 2020 is understandably up from recent years, as a number of lawmakers either spent time in quarantine or contracted the COVID-19 virus during the ongoing worldwide pandemic. Michigan lawmakers missed just 768 roll call votes in 2019.
Excluding purely procedural votes, the Senate held 1,002 roll call votes in 2020 and the House 757, for a total of 1,759 roll call votes by the entire Legislature. In 2019, there were 1,614 roll call votes taken by both legislative bodies.
The number of missed votes has fallen dramatically since 2001-02, the first legislative session covered by MichiganVotes.org. Over that two-year period, individual Michigan lawmakers failed to cast a roll call vote 21,162 times.
McHugh tells us, “The number of missed votes could have been a lot higher given the epidemic,” adding, “Legislative leaders and members had to overcome many obstacles to schedule and show up for daily sessions.”
Typically missed votes occur when family, health or personal issues require a lawmaker’s absence for an entire day or longer.
Missed votes tallies are just a small piece of the information MichiganVotes.org provides the public. The searchable database has every bill and all the votes for every Michigan state legislator. It contains plain-English descriptions of more than 38,000 bills introduced since 2001 and more than 35,000 record roll call votes.
The service was started to help citizens make more informed voting decisions, and its main benefit has been increased transparency and accountability. The site’s database now contains 20 years’ worth of legislators’ votes — complete records of the full legislative careers of many lawmakers.
You can view the complete Missed Votes Report at this link: http://www.michiganvotes.org/MissedVotes.aspx
