Assembly Republicans Protest ‘Ghost’ Votes

Outraged Assembly Republicans caught Democrats casting “ghost” votes for absent members on a key HMO bill, forcing the lower house to recess for several hours until two missing members returned from Los Angeles to cast crucial votes in person early Friday.

The bill, which would allow patients to sue HMOs for larger damage awards, was approved. But not before embarrassed Democrats, led by Assembly Speaker Antonio Villaraigosa (D-Los Angeles), scrambled to fly an ailing colleague--Assemblyman Rod Wright of Los Angeles--back to Sacramento to cast the vote that was made in his name while he was 400 miles away.

Wright had left for the day on Thursday to prepare for medical tests related to his cancer.

A weary-looking Wright reappeared on the floor just after midnight, voted in person and quickly left the chamber.

Wright, reached in Los Angeles on Friday, said he was flown home by private plane and will undergo surgery for prostate cancer Monday. Wright said that during his absence from the Assembly, he did not know others were voting for him.

Unidentified Democrats pushing electronic buttons also cast ghost votes on the bill for missing members Kevin Murray of Los Angeles and Dick Floyd of Wilmington.

Murray, who was present on the floor earlier then left for his district, also returned from Los Angeles to cast his vote early Friday.

He said he was planning to return for the final round of voting all along and had no knowledge that someone had voted for him. Votes by Murray were recorded in four out of five roll calls that were posted on the single HMO bill.

Floyd never showed up for the Assembly’s late-night session after appearing on the floor earlier in the day Thursday. His name, however, remained among the measure’s “yes” votes, even on the final tally when it passed 43 to 28.

Floyd was unavailable for comment Friday. Assembly bills need 41 votes to pass.

There were varying accounts of when the three absent Democrats left the chamber, but it appeared likely that some or all also were not present when the Assembly took a procedural vote on the state budget--even though their names appeared as votes favoring the spending measure.

The budget bill passed by the barest of margins, 41 to 35.

GOP Leader Bill Leonard of San Bernardino said that Assembly Republicans were tipped off to Democratic ghost votes by HMO industry lobbyists opposed to the bill who were watching the floor proceedings on a television monitor in a Capitol corridor.

“Mr. Speaker, we are concerned that two of your members have left the building and . . . have [been] ghost-voted,” said Republican Bruce Thompson of Fallbrook, making a rare public complaint on the house floor about ghost voting.

Ghost voting--one member pressing the yes or no button for another member who is not at his or her desk--occurs sporadically and is not always detected among the 80 members often milling about the spacious chamber.

Although little is usually said about a ghost vote cast while a legislator is temporarily out of the chambers, the practice is frowned upon most when a vote is posted for a member who is out of the Capitol or out of town.

Assembly rules prohibit ghost voting, but there is no penalty for breaking the rule.