Campaign Cuts Into Campbell’s Voting Record

Last week, in the early rush toward its summer recess, the House took up a host of bills, amendments and resolutions on issues near and dear to Republican congressman and U.S. Senate hopeful Tom Campbell.

The marriage tax. Trade with China. The national debt. Defense spending.

But the outspoken congressman from San Jose missed every vote. One day he was greeting supporters at a hot-dogs-and-potato-salad event marking the official opening of his campaign headquarters outside San Jose. The next day he was in Sacramento, meeting with advisors for briefings on topics crucial to any statewide candidate in California: agriculture, water and natural resources.

He ended the week on the telephone with potential campaign contributors, “dialing for dollars” in the parlance of politics.

It’s nothing new for a politician to miss votes in an election season. But as he barnstorms the state in an uphill battle to unseat Democratic U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, Campbell may have handed Feinstein a new campaign issue: his woeful attendance record.

Since January, Campbell has missed 53% of the 428 floor votes in the House, according to Congressional Quarterly records. And that has left him with the worst voting attendance record of any member in Congress. (By contrast, Feinstein has missed only one of 218 Senate votes this year.)

“The congressman likes to call himself the ‘cheapest man in Congress’ because he votes against spending bills,” said Feinstein’s campaign manager, Kam Kuwata. “But in any other business, you don’t show up half the time and take a full salary. That is not being frugal.”

And the criticism is not coming just from the rival camp.

While Campbell’s absences did not appear to jeopardize any GOP-led battles, they did leave the party’s slim majority in the House even slimmer on some issues. “Obviously, it makes our challenge even bigger,” said one senior Republican aide. “We have very few folks to spare.”

Campbell, who was expected back in Washington, D.C., for this week’s final votes before the summer recess, has seen some benefit in spending so much time in California. Since January, his campaign has raised $2 million, more than Feinstein’s total for the year. Still, she has $3.1 million on hand--three times his amount--and his campaign fund remains well below the millions needed to run a high-profile television campaign in sprawling, diverse California.

Campbell says he has no choice but to miss votes in a system that demands huge amounts of campaign money--a system he wants to change. And his opponent is a well known, well financed incumbent.

“The voters nominated me to run for the U.S. Senate and as a result, I have to be campaigning,” Campbell said in late May, at a Bay Area event where he received the endorsement of Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), another advocate of campaign finance reform.

At that point, Campbell already had missed more than 100 of about 200 roll call votes.

“I come back to Washington, D.C., as often as I can and cast important votes on important issues whenever they arise,” he said. “[But] it is not possible to be in two places at the same time, and obviously this is a compromise that others have taken.”

The House member with the next worst attendance record, Indiana Rep. David McIntosh, has not been present for about 46% of this year’s votes as he campaigns as the Republican nominee for governor.

“A number of them are missing a number of votes, uncharacteristically, and of course, it is not a good trend,” said Steve Weissman, legislative representative for the nonpartisan consumer advocacy group Public Citizen.

“People need to be adequately represented, especially when there are so many close votes . . . so if Campbell is missing more votes than any other [House] member, he can be criticized for that,” Weissman said.

“On the other hand, it has to be recognized that he is running for office in California, which is awful far from Capitol Hill. . . . While it is bad that Campbell and other candidates are spending increasing amounts of time away from Congress, it is worthless to simply criticize them [when] the real solution is to get spending limits on these campaigns,” he said.

Sean Walsh, Campbell’s communications director, notes that until the beginning of this year, the congressman’s attendance was as good as Feinstein’s, with both participating in 99% of all floor votes, according to Congressional Quarterly tallies.

As a longtime incumbent, Walsh said, Feinstein is well known, “so there is no need for her to come back to the state to raise her profile.”

And Feinstein’s personal wealth, Walsh added, means “she can write a big check to her campaign if she has to.”

A decade ago, Feinstein also criticized the voting attendance of former Gov. Pete Wilson when the two battled for the governor’s office. On Friday, Feinstein said Campbell’s missed votes this year will be his “Achilles heel” in their contest.

“One of the things we do back here is vote,” she said in a statement from her Washington office.

Her campaign manager added that Campbell’s voting record casts doubt on his rhetoric. “He says we should do away with the ‘marriage penalty’ tax but then he misses the vote,” Kuwata said. “He goes to the Central Valley and says he will fight for more federal funds for water resources. But then he doesn’t vote on the agriculture appropriations bill.”

Mark Baldassare, survey director for the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California, said politicians’ voting records matter to voters. “It gives them a sense of a politician’s commitment to public service,” Baldassare said.

“When you are spending time fund-raising as opposed to voting in Congress, that can raise questions about how committed a candidate is to the public interest versus self-interest or interest groups,” Baldassare said.

“So that’s a real challenge for someone like Campbell, who needs to raise a lot of money to run a credible campaign in California,” he said. “How do you do the job people expect you to do as a public servant and at the same time raise money for a race that’s three time zones away from Washington, D.C.?

“It’s no easy task.”

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Times researcher Paul J. Singleton contributed to this report.

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Missed Votes

Campaigning for the U.S. Senate, Republican Rep. Tom Campbell has missed more than half the House roll call votes this year. In some actions he missed this month, the House:

July 10 Rejected an amendment prohibiting the Food and Drug Administration from using taxpayer funds to test, develop or approve any drug, such as RU486, to induce abortion.

July 11 Approved a $75.3-billion agriculture appropriations bill.

July 12 Passed a bill to reduce the marriage penalty tax.

July 17 Adopted a resolution declaring that security procedures in the National Nuclear Security Administration are inadequate, as evidenced by recent incidents at Los Alamos National Laboratory.

July 18 Rejected a joint resolution to deny President Clinton’s request for normal trade relations status with China through July 2001.

July 19 Increased significantly the individual contribution limits for 401(k) plans and other retirement accounts.

July 19 Adopted and sent to the Senate a report to appropriate $287.8 billion for Defense Department spending.

July 20 Lifted limits on U.S. food and drug sales to Cuba, as well as travel restrictions to that country.

July 20 Approved $29.1 billion in new budgets for the Treasury Department, U.S. Postal Service, parts of the executive branch and other agencies. Included a $3,800 pay raise for House members, who now make $141,300 a year.

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Source: Congressional Quarterly