Report Shows Deddeh Missed 43% of State Senate Votes : Politics: The Bonita Democrat had one of the worst records of the 1989-90 session. Most of San Diego’s 10 legislators did much better.

Sen. Wadie P. Deddeh (D-Bonita) has one of the worst absentee records in the Legislature, missing 43% of the votes he could have cast during the 1989-90 legislative session, a computer analysis shows.

And Sen. William A. Craven, who suffers from periodic bouts with the flu and pneumonia, is only slightly better when it comes to missing roll calls: The Oceanside Republican failed to answer “aye” or “nay” 35% of the time.

Most members of the San Diego delegation, however, were in committee meetings or on the Legislature floor often enough to compile absentee records on par or even better than their elected colleagues, the analysis shows.

The only exceptions: Assemblywoman Carol Bentley (R-El Cajon) and Assemblyman Pete Chacon (D-San Diego), who missed 14% and 16%, respectively, because of illness.

In a recent interview, Deddeh bristled at questions about his higher-than-average absenteeism. Records show he missed more than 800 votes alone when he skipped the final, hectic week of the legislative session to stay at home in Bonita and entertain relatives in advance of his son’s wedding.

Among the measures Deddeh missed was landmark oil spill legislation, a $3.6-billion bond package put on the November ballot, and a bill requiring mandatory earthquake insurance for California homeowners. But the 24-year veteran downplayed his absence and emphasized he was poised to fly to Sacramento at any time his vote was needed to break a deadlock.

“The bills that were before us--nothing was crucial, nothing was important,” said Deddeh, 70. “As far as I was concerned, if those bills were not passed at all, the state would probably be better off for it.

“My son, my only child, was getting married and that to me was more important, more crucial than being in Sacramento,” he said, adding that the crush of business during the final week turned the Legislature into a “circus” of activity and late-night meetings.

Yet San Diego government watchers say Deddeh’s absentee record would not pass muster in the private sector.

“It wouldn’t be acceptable if he worked for me and he does--as a representative,” said Robert Lichter, president and chief executive officer of John Burnham & Co. Lichter is also president of San Diegans Inc., a lobbying group of downtown businesses.

“If someone were there (in Sacramento) for less than 80% of the votes, I’d say, ‘My God. Why? You’re paying him 100% of his salary,’ ” Lichter said.

Assembly and Senate voting records for the last session, which began in December, 1988, and ended Sept. 1, were compiled by Legi-Tech, a computer tracking firm in Sacramento used by lobbyists, governmental agencies and others in Sacramento.

The results show how each legislator has voted--”yes,” “no” or “not-voting”--on the thousands of issues presented to committees or on the floor of the Legislature. The statistics make no allowance for instances where legislators miss votes because of conflicting committee meetings. Nor do they consider that legislators are marked absent for dozens of items when they miss just one consent calendar roll call, where non-controversial items are bundled and approved in one fell swoop.

The numbers are also blind to the differences in how votes are recorded in the 40-member Senate, which votes by verbal roll call, and the 80-member Assembly, which votes electronically.

Assembly members who are not around to push the “yes” or “no” buttons at their desk can later add their votes in the official records, as long as it doesn’t affect the outcome on a bill. Senators, however, cannot do the same if they miss a roll call.

Given those considerations, however, former legislators have said that Assembly members and senators should miss no more than 10% of their votes. In San Diego, Lichter and Joseph Francis, executive secretary-treasurer of the San Diego-Imperial Counties Labor Council, agreed.

“I would suggest that something in the neighborhood of 10% is reasonable, not counting on extraordinary circumstances that might cause it to go beyond that,” said Francis, who represents 107,000 workers affiliated with the AFL-CIO.

Voting scores for the 1989-1990 session showed that the real-world performance of the Legislature was not far off. Assembly members missed an average of 9.5%, while their counterparts in the Senate missed 15%.

The worst record in the Senate was set by State Sen. Bill Greene (D-Los Angeles) who has been hospitalized for alcoholism and a heart problem. Greene missed 58% of his votes, the only state senator missing more votes than Deddeh.

Most of San Diego’s 10 legislators were comfortably within the range of their respective houses, the numbers show.

In the Assembly, rookie Jeff Marston (R-San Diego) had the best record of all lawmakers with a 2% non-voting rate. Following were Tricia Hunter (R-Bonita) at 3%; Robert C. Frazee (R-Carlsbad), who missed 5%; Sunny Mojonnier (R-Encinitas) with 8%; and Steve Peace (D-Rancho San Diego) at 10%.

Despite their good records, at least two San Diegans--Frazee and Mojonnier--were away decided to take vacations during some of the Legislature’s most crucial deliberations over the $3.6-billion budget deficit.

As the budget battle dragged on through the traditional summer recess, Frazee--caucus chairman for the Assembly Republicans, who were holding up the spending plan--decided to take a long weekend in July to accompany his travel agent wife to Puerto Vallarta. The occasion: an opening of a new Marriott Hotel.

Frazee was in the Mexican resort on July 28, when the Legislature finally hashed out an uneasy agreement. Legislative sources said his absence has continued to be a sore point with Assembly Speaker Willie Brown (D-San Francisco), who was hoping Frazee would be instrumental in breaking the budget deadlock.

“It appeared to me that nothing would have happened that week at all,” Frazee explained. “Things were so locked in, so my decision was that I should go for Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday and be back on Monday.”

“In the case of 20-20 hindsight, it was not the best judgment on my part,” he said.

Mojonnier missed the final deliberations and budget vote because she was on vacation in Hawaii. She said Friday that she had to be with her son, who is living in Hawaii, because of a family crisis. She was in touch with the speaker’s office by phone and was prepared to return if necessary.

“I didn’t do anything different than any other mother would have done,” Mojonnier said.

She and Frazee declined to collect their $88 per diem, which is in addition to the regular legislative salary, during those absences.

Meanwhile, the only San Diego Assembly members who missed more than the average number of votes were Bentley, who missed 14%, and Chacon, who had a 16% absentee rate. Both cited health reasons.

Bentley missed all of May to recuperate from a hysterectomy. Chacon blamed his high number of missed votes on a neck virus, as well as a running battle against ear infections brought on by complications from flying 35 combat missions in B-17 bombers during World War II.

“That happens frequently to me,” he said about the infections. “That’s a perennial problem I have.”

In the Senate, newcomer Lucy Killea (D-San Diego) missed 18%, slightly more than the average for the upper chamber. She was absent on several days when she stayed in San Diego to be with her husband, who is seriously ill.

However, the delegation’s absentee rates were overshadowed by Craven and Deddeh, the two senior members of the delegation.

Attendance records show that the 68-year-old Craven, a chain smoker with diabetes, was absent 36 days during the 1989-1990 session because of illness. Legislators are paid their $88 per diem for expenses even when they call in sick.

Craven and his staff say he suffers from respiratory problems, making him susceptible to colds and pneumonia. And even when he is healthy and tending to business in the Capitol, Craven said he doesn’t mind missing many of the votes.

“The stuff about whether to have the Lahonton Water District (near Lake Tahoe) meet once a month or twice a month . . . hell, my people aren’t concerned with that,” Craven said.

The 18-year legislative veteran also said that his leadership position on the Senate Rules Committee often keeps him busy working behind the scenes, like during the three days at the close of session he spent trying to save two of his bills.

“We had to redo things time and time again, and that’s all I did for three days,” Craven said. “In doing so, I missed a lot of stuff on the floor. Generally speaking, if something of consequence to the district is going to be up, we will be there and we always have.”

Yet Craven was still closer to the voting action than Deddeh, who decided to stay 500 miles away from the Capitol during the climax of the legislative session. Deddeh’s decision to skip the final week brought to 58 the number of days he missed over the 269 days the Legislature was in session over the last two years.

The majority of that time came last year, when Deddeh was sidelined seven weeks after emergency heart-bypass surgery. Recovering from the operation, Deddeh told The Times last summer that he felt great but would relinquish his job if he needed to undergo another major operation.

“In my opinion, you are not doing your constituents, the Senate and the Legislature any good by not being there,” Deddeh said at the time.

But Deddeh has continued to miss a significant number of votes in 1990 and most of the absences had nothing to do with health. Senate records show he took only four days off for sickness--two for himself, and two to look after his elderly mother in San Diego.

Otherwise, Deddeh was gone from the Capitol for legislative and personal business. Records show he missed the Feb. 15 session to accompany his wife, Mary-Lynn, to a Salvation Army “Door of Hope” auxiliary luncheon honoring her contributions to the community.

He also took off June 25 to pick-up Mohammed Mashat, Iraq’s Ambassador to the United States, at Lindbergh Field and drive the foreign dignitary to the World Affairs Council for a speech. Iraqi-born Deddeh then put on a reception for Mashat at his Bonita home, where 60 South Bay public officials were invited to meet the Middle Eastern representative.

Yet the decision that really ballooned Deddeh’s absentee record was the one to take off, without per diem, the last five days of the legislative session to prepare for the wedding of his son, Peter, a San Diego County deputy district attorney. The California Constitution required the Legislature to end its session on Friday, Aug. 31, and Deddeh’s son was married Saturday, Sept. 1.

Deddeh said he needed to take the full week in San Diego to help entertain 40 relatives, who were flying in from around the country for the prenuptial festivities. Meanwhile, his colleagues were voting on a crush of 843 bills.

“You don’t understand,” Deddeh said. “Where I come from, a wedding of this nature is a whole week. . . . I had to host an awful lot of functions at my home. I couldn’t leave my wife alone.”

“I warned (Senate President Pro Tempore David) Roberti two months ago, two months ago I warned him, that I would not be in Sacramento for the last week,” said Deddeh, who emphasized that he would have flown back to the Capitol at Roberti’s request to cast a deciding vote on any issue.

“Obviously, I wasn’t needed,” Deddeh said. “They had my unlisted telephone number at home.

“I have not missed the crucial votes that my district required me to vote,” he said, adding that it is up to his constituents in the 40th Senatorial District to decide whether his absenteeism is acceptable.

Francis agreed that it is ultimately up to the senior senators’ constituents to decide if their absentee records are excessive. Both Deddeh and Craven are running for reelection.

“I think what happens is that the final judgment is up to the voters,” Francis said. “In the case of Deddeh and Craven, the voters seem to think they are doing a good job.”

Burnham’s Lichter, however, has a different view. If both Craven and Deddeh were executives in a private company, their absences would be unacceptable, he said.

“I’m sure my private sector colleagues agree, if someone has a material role in the decision-making or in the productive side of the business, if they’re not around for 90% or more of the time, they’re not going to be around at all,” Lichter said.