Handful of lawmakers missed dozens of votes this past weekend

The furious pace of late-night votes in the House last week took a steep toll on the attendance records of a handful of lawmakers who left the Capitol before Congress adjourned.

Reps. Betty McCollum (D-Minn.), Ben Quayle (R-Ariz.), Ruben Hinojosa (D-Texas), Gary Peters (D-Mich.), Jane Harman (D-Calif.) and Ron Paul (R-Texas) all missed dozens of votes on amendments to the GOP spending bill the House passed early Saturday morning, as well as the climactic vote on the legislation itself, according to an analysis by The Hill.

{mosads}The 107 votes on the spending bill comprise more than 70 percent of the 147 total roll call votes for the new Congress, and several of the lawmakers have now missed more than 40 percent of the votes. Few of them, however, are likely to pay a heavy political price for their absence.

Quayle left to attend the funeral of his father-in-law, while Paul flew back to Texas for the funeral of the husband of his longtime district director, who died in a car crash, spokesmen for the lawmakers said. Peters left for a family medical emergency – his father was in the hospital, his spokesman said. 

McCollum departed Thursday for previously scheduled trip to Yemen, forcing her to miss the final 58 votes, including a vote on an amendment she offered to prevent the Defense Department from using taxpayer funds to sponsor NASCAR vehicles.

A McCollum spokeswoman said she was traveling to Yemen at the request of the Pentagon to address an audience that included senior military officials and the country’s prime minister. The trip was planned when the House schedule called for a recess beginning Thursday afternoon.

“Congresswoman McCollum believed canceling the trip to Yemen would have caused a diplomatic embarrassment for U.S. officials in Yemen, but would not have changed the outcome of any of the amendment votes or the final passage of [the spending bill],” the spokeswoman, Maria Reppas, said.

Harman’s resignation from Congress takes effect on Feb. 28, and she skipped the votes that took place after she delivered her final floor speech on Friday afternoon.

A spokeswoman for Paul, Rachel Mills, said the congressman “hates to miss votes and does not do so lightly.” But the funeral for his aide’s husband was Saturday, Mills said, and “he really needed to be at that funeral for her.”

Hinojosa left Washington on Friday afternoon after being told his sister was very ill, a spokeswoman for the congressman said. His sister died Wednesday night.

Reps. Pete Stark (D-Calif.) and Frederica Wilson (D-Fla.) missed the last 23 roll call votes on Saturday morning, including the vote on the underlying bill.

The only other prolonged absence among lawmakers has been that of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.), who remains in a Houston rehabilitation facility after she was shot in Tucson, Ariz., on Jan. 8.

The House finally passed the legislation, which would fund the government through September, at 4:43 a.m. on Saturday, after an all-night session of votes and debate. Lawmakers considered the dozens of amendments that made it to the floor in a rapid-fire series of votes, most of which lasted only two minutes. The pace forced members who stepped out of the House chamber even briefly to miss votes, and lawmakers frequently ran back inside as the voting clock expired, yelling “One more!” in a bid to get their votes counted.

In the original story, it was mistakenly reported that Rep. Ben Quayle was attending the funeral of his mother-in-law. It was the funeral of his father-in-law.

This story was updated at 10:13 a.m. on Feb. 24.