Sen. Campbell Is Among Top Vote Missers

Since late 1986, state Sen. William Campbell (R-Hacienda Heights) has missed 30% of the votes he could have cast on legislation, including more than half of those logged by committees on which he serves, a computer analysis shows.

That record not only makes Campbell one of the most infrequent voters in the state Senate, where the average absentee record over the same period was 17%, but it makes him by far the member of the Orange County delegation in Sacramento with the highest percentage of missed votes, according to the analysis of legislative business conducted between December, 1986, and June 15.

Collected $88 Per Diem

In addition, Campbell and two other Orange County senators missed votes on days they checked in at the Capitol and collected their $88 per diem, attendance records show.

On the Assembly side, Orange County legislators with the highest non-voting rates include Assemblymen John R. Lewis (R-Orange) and Gil Ferguson (R-Newport Beach) at 14% and 13% respectively--records that also exceed the 8% average for missed votes in the lower chamber during the period covered by the analysis.

Campbell and other Orange County legislators contacted by The Times say they sometimes missed votes because they were busy pushing other political agendas. They cautioned that these statistics should not be taken at face value, contending that voting alone does not make someone an effective representative.

They say their voting records should not be viewed as a Sacramento batting average, but rather that their performances should be judged like those of the baseball player who comes through with a big hit in the clutch.

“I think it all depends on what votes you miss and what votes you make,” Campbell said. “If you miss (bills) where nobody votes ‘no’ and they are all technical bills, that’s not an important issue. But if you miss voting on the budget and you miss voting on the key issues of the day, that’s where your constituents expect you to act,” he said.

Others disagree, arguing that casting a vote on a proposed law--no matter how inconsequential--is considered one of the most important aspects of an elected official’s job.

Raises Question

“If they are taking per diem and are getting paid, they should be representing the people. . . . It just raises a serious question as to what their priorities are,” said Gus Owen, president of the Lincoln Club, a prestigious Orange County GOP support group. “If they exceed 15%, I really seriously question what they are doing.”

Sacramento attorney Robert Naylor, who served in the Assembly from 1978 to 1986 and was Assembly Republican leader for two of those years, said he believes a legislator should miss no more than 10% of his votes, despite a crowded schedule.

Anything more than that, Naylor and others say, leaves a legislator vulnerable to the perception that he is not tending to business.

The number of votes missed by each senator and assemblyman since December, 1986, was compiled by Legi-Tech, a computer tracking firm used by journalists, lobbyists, government agencies and companies that have business with the Legislature.

The analysis indicates whether a legislator votes “yes,” “no” or not at all on each of the thousands of bills considered each session. This includes rafts of non-controversial bills that are usually approved--all at once--by unanimous consent.

Thus, a senator or assemblyman who misses one of these consent votes will be recorded as absent for dozens--sometimes hundreds--of bills all at once, a method that Campbell and others say is unfair when considering their percentages.

Procedures Differ

The tracking also makes no allowance for differences in voting procedures between the Assembly and the Senate. In the Assembly, a person who misses a vote is allowed to add it later to the official record, as long as his vote does not affect the outcome of a bill. Senators, however, cannot change the record if they miss a roll call.

As a further cross-check to Legi-Tech, The Times reviewed attendance records of the three Orange County state senators who scored higher than 10% in missing votes. Among the results:

Campbell was the Orange County legislator who missed the most votes, failing to cast 3,070 out of the 10,201 possible votes on the floor and in committees. He missed 20% of the votes to come up on the Senate floor, and 53%--1,704 out of 3,208--on the various committees to which he is assigned.

Of the 40 state senators, the only ones to have missed more votes than Campbell are Joseph B. Montoya (D-Whittier), at 46%; Bill Greene (D-Los Angeles), at 36%, and William A. Craven (R-Oceanside) at 30%. Records show that Craven, however, has often missed votes because of illness.

The Orange County legislator who missed the fewest votes was freshman Assemblyman Curt Pringle (R-Garden Grove), at 3%. Assemblywoman Doris Allen (R-Cypress) and Assemblyman Dennis Brown (R-Los Alamitos) both missed only 5%. Democrat Cecil N. Green of Norwalk recorded the highest voting percentage among senators representing Orange County, missing only 6%.

Collected Per Diem

Since the beginning of this year, Sens. Campbell, Edward R. Royce (R-Anaheim) and John Seymour (R-Anaheim) missed votes on days they were recorded as present and eligible to collect their per diem. Campbell missed one or more votes on at least 38 such days. For example, he missed 25 committee votes while being present May 10.

Seymour missed votes on at least 25 days that he was checked into the Capitol, and Royce missed votes on at least 24 days on which he was counted as present.

Among the votes missed by Orange County legislators were measures of local interest. For instance, Campbell missed two Senate roll call votes on June 1 for measures requiring developers to pay fees for the construction of Orange County toll roads and bridges, Legi-Tech records show. But as Campbell argues, his vote would have mattered little because the measures passed handily, 30 to 4 and 26 to 3.

Royce and Seymour both missed the May 18 floor vote on a bill that would allow the public Irvine Ranch Water District to invest its funds in local real estate. Their input would not have changed the outcome, though, because the measure passed 23 to 2.

When asked about the statistics, Campbell said he misses many votes because he is busy performing other, less visible but nevertheless important legislative duties. For instance, last session he was away from many roll calls to head up an ad hoc committee of lawmakers trying to forge a state transportation plan.

What’s More Important?

“So what’s more important: working on a transportation problem or not voting on a consent calendar vote where there isn’t a no vote?” Campbell asked.

He also said his appointment to the board of the California Museum of Science and Industry, which is next to the Los Angeles Coliseum, takes him away one afternoon a month when he is scheduled to be in the Senate’s Health and Human Services Committee.

“Because you miss it (a bill) in one committee doesn’t mean you aren’t going to see it in the next,” he said. “And then you are going to see it on the floor, if it makes it that far.”

Lewis, under indictment for allegedly forging President Reagan’s signature on campaign literature, said his legal problems didn’t contribute to his lower-than-average voting record.

He said many of his missed votes were actually abstentions in protest to liberal-leaning legislation, and he disputed any notion that his non-voting record is out of line.

“My abstaining on votes may be a concept that is too difficult for some people to understand, but it is completely clear and justified in my mind,” he said.

His colleague in the Assembly, Ferguson, said his own voting record has suffered because he was forced to miss more than a month of the session earlier this year because of the flu.

In addition, Ferguson said, he sometimes abstains from voting if he doesn’t fully understand the issue at hand.

“I’m not one of those guys who pushes a button just to say he pushed his button,” Ferguson said, referring to the electronic voting system used in the Assembly. “I don’t vote on something that I don’t understand.”

Had to Catch Plane

Over in the Senate, Seymour, a candidate for lieutenant governor, said he missed the May 18 votes because he had to leave the Capitol early to catch an airplane. “I had to leave before the consent calendar came up because I had a fund-raiser for my lieutenant governor’s race in Orange County,” he said.

Seymour, however, said he expects his voting percentage to soon go up, especially when the crush of bills hits the Legislature before the mid-September adjournment.

“The problem with me is how you put the numbers together,” he said. “The only fair way to put numbers together is by an entire session.”

Royce said his voting percentage has dipped from the previous session because he has been away from the Capitol campaigning in a statewide effort to put a court reform initiative on the ballot for June, 1990. He missed 47 Senate floor votes on the consent calendar May 25, he said, because he left early to attend a 4:30 p.m. news conference in Los Angeles with U.S. Sen. Pete Wilson (R-Calif.), kicking off the petition drive.

The next day, Royce missed 74 votes while making a speech in Kern County about the initiative, he said.

Royce said that despite his missed votes, he is still working for his constituents by pushing the ballot measure, which includes many of the elements in a legislative package that he was unable to get passed last year.

“I feel this issue is so important that I have made the sacrifice of pushing the campaign for the initiative, and as a result, my voting record for this session is not as good as it was in the past years,” Royce said.

MISSING IN ACTION

This is how Orange County’s state delegation ranks by percentage of votes missed in Sacramento. Tally is from Dec. 1, 1986, to June 15, 1989, a period that covers the last and current legislative session. The number of votes varies because different lawmakers sit of different committees, each of which considers a different number of bills.

Votes Votes % Name Missed Held Missed Sen. William Campbell (R-Hacienda Heights) 3,070 10,201 30 Sen. Edward R. Royce (R-Anaheim) 1,326 8,954 15 Assemblyman John R. Lewis (R-Orange) 1,819 12,661 14 Assemblyman Gil Ferguson (R-Newport Beach) 1,766 13,116 13 Sen. John Seymour (R-Anaheim) 1,079 8,535 13 Sen. Marian Bergeson (R-Newport Beach) 872 8,738 10 Assemblyman Ross Johnson (R-La Habra) 1,157 12,158 10 Sen. Cecil N. Greene (D-Norwalk) 517 8,283 6 Assemblyman Nolan Frizzelle (R-Hunt Beach) 504 8,706 6 Assemblyman Dennis Brown (R-Los Alamitos) 694 13,223 5 Assemblywoman Doris Allen (R-Cypress) 446 8,864 5 Assemblyman Curt Pringle (R-Garden Grove)* 30 880 3

*Pringle won election last fall

Source: Legi-Tech, a computer tracking system used by lawmakers, lobbyists, governmental agencies and others in Sacramento.