Factual question about Kerry's attendance

And Edwards’ too.

Where can I go to get the straight dope on the whats and whys of Kerry’s (and Edwards’) Senate attendance?

Thanks.

-FrL-

It’s cool to ask where to find Kerry’s or Edwards’ attendance records. Asking why is a little iffy in GQ. (Unless Kerry or Edwards said why, it is just specualtion.)

A reminder: Keep political pot shots out of General Questions. If you can’t answer without a cheap shot, don’t post in General Questions.

Thank you.

DrMatrix - GQ Moderator

As for Kerry’s participation in Senate votes, right up until he started running for President, he was right in the mainsteam of participation. Stats. Generally speaking, most members have a 95%+ voting record. During his campaign, however, he’s been absent from most votes. CQ hasn’t compiled the numbers, but I’d imagine his participation would be in the low single digits.

Same thing goes for Edwards, but his non-election year voting participation rate is rather high. Numbers.

Regarding committee participation, I do not know of any non-partisan organization that tracks those sorts of things, but I see no reason to dispute the opposition research done by Republicans in this area. I cannot give a factual answer about why Kerry or Edwards did or did not attend committee meetings, but I can give you an idea for the reasons that senators, in general, may miss committee hearings.

The attendance rate for Senators for committee hearings and meetings is much lower than for voting participation. I’m just guessing at numbers here, but I’d say that a 25-40 percent attendence rate at hearings would be about average, and a 60-75 percent attendence rate at business meetings (like markups and such) would be in the mainstream.

The reason those participation rates are so much lower is because of several reasons: 1) Senators usually serve on three to five committees, making scheduling conflicts inevitable; 2) committees are not quite as important in the Senate as in the House (often House members’ only chance to influence legislation is at the committee level; whereas Senators are all entitled to offer amendments on the Floor of the Senate); 3) Senators are simply busy people, meeting with Boy Scout troops to giving press interviews to wheeling and dealing and so on; 4) a lot of hearings are not terribly productive or just plain boring – committee chairmen sometimes stack witness lists to favor their viewpoint to the exclusion of others, so why should a Senator go to listen to folks who will just say what the chairman has already said?

I’ll note, also, that attendance at hearings is generally poor, and that is expected. The Senate Judiciary Committee rules meekly states that “Attendance at all hearings is encouraged.” That’s not exactly twisting arms to get people to attend.

In some committees, so rampant is absenteeism by all members, that no roll call is taken.

Can we find a record of Cheney’s attendence. Of course I realize that he was in the house while Edwards is in the senate, so it might be comparing apples and oranges, but it would still be interesting.

Ravenman, the two links you gave just go to a general home page for CQ.com. I think maybe you’re subscribing to a service there which I am not?

Any way you could (legally) copy/paste the relevant info from over there to over here? Just if it’s not a lot of trouble or anything.

So do I understand your analysis to be that as far as how often they vote on issues, their average is similar to the overall Senate average, but their committee attendance is somewhat lower than average?

-FrL-

Blast. Here’s a snippet of the data, retyped by me, just covering 2003 to 1998.

Kerry: 36% (2003), 96% (2002), 98% (2001), 95% (2000), 99% (1999), 98% (1998)
Edwards: 61% (2003), 100% (2002), 99% (2001), 100% (2000), 99% (1999) (elected in 1998, therefore no votes)

And yes, I think their voting participation rate is definitely average to better-than average excepting the time they spent campaigning, that their voting participation average during their campaigns is very, very low (for obvious reasons).

As far as the committee participation, of course there is no data to compare to (ie, how did Kerry’s committee participation match up to, say, Kennedy’s record? Or Bill Frist’s record?), but my gut feeling is that their committee participation rates could be a little lower than other members, but it does not strike me as terribly far out of the mainstream.

All in all, I’d say that the charge of absenteeism is probably factually accurate, but is only effective to the extent that most people don’t really pay close attention to how their government really works. Like, in the same manner that a lot of people are surpised that Members of Congress don’t actually read the bills that they vote on… Which makes me wonder, do people think that the President actually reads the bills that he signs into law? But, that’s a topic for another day. :slight_smile:

I sure would like to see the full data. Does this CQ.com have detailed lists of such things? Can that data be gotten elsewhere for free?

It does. But I guess if the link is a subscription (I didn’t know my office had one!), here’s the rest of the voting participation stats for Kerry.

99% ('97); 99% ('96); 99% ('95); 99% ('94); 99% ('93); 99% ('92); 100% ('91); 96% ('90); 100% ('89); 93% ('88); 96% ('87); 95% ('86); 98% ('85).

Thanks, Ravenman. I can’t speak for the OP, but I wonder:

  • What are these percentages? votes on all bills?
  • What is the average like?
  • What is typical of leaders and other well-knowns?
  • What is typical during an election?

I believe that it is fairly standard practice for a Senator who can’t vote on a bill to find an agreeable member who is planning to vote opposite him. This other Senator agrees to also miss the vote, so that the outcome is the same. I expect that they only go to this trouble if the vote they’re missing is particularly important to them, and that there are times when it is impossible to find an accomodating person among the opposition.

The above paragraph is not based on any first-hand knowledge, nor do I have a cite for it. I also have no way to know if Kerry or Edwards used this practice during their campaign absences. If anyone can corroborate my information, it could show that missing votes is often not as serious as it may sound.

  1. Percent of roll call votes held by the Senate in which the Senator in question cast a vote. There are usually around 400 to 500 roll call votes in any one year of session.

  2. I’ve never seen a mathmatical breakdown of the average voting participation number, but I’d guess that the median would be about 97 or 98%.

  3. Stats for the Majority and Minority Leaders during their tenures:
    Bill Frist, Republican Leader: 99% ('03)
    Trent Lott, Republican Leader: 98% ('02); 98% ('01); 99% ('00); 99% ('99); 98% ('98); 100% ('97); 99% ('96); 99% ('95); 95% ('94)

Tom Daschle, Democratic Leader: 99% ('03), 94% ('02); 99% ('01); 97% ('00); 99% ('99); 100% ('98); 97% ('97); 100% ('96); 99% ('95); 100% ('94)

  1. There haven’t been a lot of Senators who have been nominated for President (or Vice President) while maintaining their Senate seat… Bob Dole retired from the Senate in 1996 to run against Clinton. I can’t find a record for Lloyd Bentsen’s record in 1988. But I don’t think that there is any reason to believe the Bentsen’s record would have been any different than Kerry’s or Edwards’.

When this came up on another board someone reconstructed McCain’s attendence from the roll-call votes during the period he was running in the repub primaries, and it was in the 30% range. Lieberman would also be a good comparison, but I don’t have any info on him.

Duhhh… forgive me, wasn’t thinking clearly before my coffee this morning.

Lieberman, 2003, 46% (during abortive run for Prez); 2000, 76% (basically missed votes after August)
McCain, 1999, 64%; 2000, 78%

Other Presidential contenders who didn’t get the nomination include:
Joe Biden, 1987, 62%; 1988, 18%
Bob Graham, 2003, 68%
Fritz Hollings, 1983, 50%; 1984, 79%
Ted Kennedy, 1979, 74%; 1980, 18%