Missed Votes by senators and the representatives: Complete Information regarding missed votes of Congress

 

Congress is a legislative body of the US government that plays a crucial role in making laws in the United States of America. During the legislative process members of congress have to vote in congress according to the constitution. Missed votes by senators and representatives can be of much importance while deciding the direction of the legislation.

Find out all the information you need to know about the missed votes by senators and representatives. While making the decision on November 3 for voting the senators, make sure to consider these facts to swear in the most regular members in the senate. 

 

 

Missed votes by Senators and Congressmen: An in-depth view of 116th Congress:

Congress voting records are showing massive numbers of missed votes. These missed votes can be seen in both the houses of the congress.

Out of the total of  100 senators, the following is the list of missed votes records by senators and the representatives.

Missed votes by senators: Statistics of top 10 senators missing the votes:

 

Member	Sponsored Bills	Co-sponsored Bills	Votes Against Party	Missed Votes
1. Bernard Sanders (Democrat, Vermont)	31	430	20.2%	62.7%
2. Cory Booker (Democrat, New Jersey)	95	618	17.3%	52.2%
3.Elizabeth Warren (Democrat, Massachusetts)	72	623	21.3%	50.0%
4. Kamala Harris (Democrat, California)	66	604	23.0%	48.40%
5. Amy Klobuchar (Democrat, Minnesota)	99	690	16.6%	36.5%
6. Michael Bennet (Democrat, Colorado)	31	377	5.9%	23.5%
7.Kirsten E. Gillibrand (Democrat, New York)	58	588	26.9%	20.0%
8.LamarAlexander(Republican, Tennessee)	17	129	3.8%	19.1%
9.Mike Rounds (Republican, South Dakota)	30	245	2.7%	11.6%
10.Richard M. Burr (Republican, North Carolina)	29	112	2.1%	11.3%

 

Missed votes by representatives: Which congressperson missed most and least votes?

Missed votes are not the issue in the senate only. Members of Congress lower house, i.e. House, are also having this issue.

Missed votes by representatives can result in approval or rejection by a matter of a few votes. While voting in the November 3 elections, always make sure that you are voting for those representatives who truly represent you while voting and do not destroy their votes.

Let’s have a look at the missed votes by representatives. Following is the list of the top ten representatives who missed their votes.

 

Representative’s Name	Missed Votes Percentage	Total Missed Votes
Rep. Aumua Amata	76.3%	222
Rep Michael San Nicholas	52.2%	152
Rep. Tulsi Gabbard	37.8%	265
Rep Ralph Abraham	36.4%	255
Commish Jennifer Gonzalez-Colon	30.9%	90
Rep Eric Swalwell	29.2%	205
Rep Alcee Hastings	29.1%	204
Rep Stacey Plaskett	28.5%	83
Rep Gregoria Sablan	28.5%	83
Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler	26.5%	186

 

Vote in Congress: Least missed votes by Senators:

When there are many senators missing the votes every other day, there are some members of congress who rarely miss votes. Some of the most regular members of the senate who rarely miss their votes are

1. Sen. John Thune
2. Sen. Jon Tester
3. Sen. Tina Smith
4. Sen. Jenne Shaheen
5. Sen Charles Chuck Schumer 
6. Sen. Gerry Petters
7. Sen. Mitch McConnell
8. Sen. James Lankford
9. Sen. Angus king
10. Sen. Joshua Hawley

Senator Cramer, a Republican senator, missed only 2.7% votes. Senator Rosen, a Democratic Senate member from Nevada, skipped only 0.7% of votes, which is in contrast with a lot of her peers. Senator Rick Scott, a Republican senator, has missed only 2.5% votes till now.

Similarly, Senator McSally has missed only 1.5% of the votes. She’s a Republican senator from Arizona. 

 

Important Questions to answer while discussing Missed Votes by senators and congressmen:

With all of this information come a number of questions: Why are there such a significant number of missed votes? What sparks the differences between the previous and current Senate voting records? Which of the presidential candidates is facing this, and to what degree?

Dive through the records; look at the statistics and analysis of some of the best minds deciphering this national situation worth inspecting.

To know the answers, let’s have a look at why all of this is happening.

Missed votes by senators and Representatives in 116th Congress: The key reasons:

With 53 Republicans and 47 Democrats in the senate, the contest in Senate is neck to neck every time senate meet for a vote and a couple of missed votes can cause a major difference.

This became more of an issue when the missed votes are by the majority party. This way they can fail to pass legislation.

Missed votes by senators and representatives is a much-talked issue and some of the major reasons for these missed votes are given below.

Most of the time missed votes by senators and representatives are due to the family crisis, and other reasonable circumstances.

Representatives of the senate majorities and minority management teams in the Senate are often forced to stand outside the chamber all through voting time. This also leads to missed votes. However, sometimes missed votes by senators and representatives are due to some other reasons.

For example, the Biden’s Vice-Presidential nominee Kamala Harris missed her votes due to her presidential campaign when she was seeking the presidential nomination of the Democrats. Prior to actually making judgments about an untimely voting history of a legislator, people reading this document must always consider the reasons before judging.

United States Senatorial votes:

 

There are three ways the senators can vote in the Senate. These are a roll call vote, a voice vote, and a division or standing vote.

Roll call votes are when Senators vote” yes” or “no” on specific legislation.  Their names are called to register them, and they then vote to pass or reject the legislative proposal. 

 

Missed votes by Senators: Most famous senators who missed votes in the senate of 116th Congress:

The implications of Senate missed votes is higher, especially during an election period. Some of the most important senators of the current era considering the election situation are Cory Booker, Kamala Harris, and Bernie Sanders, the Vermont senator, who have missed almost two hundred votes each in the Senate voting records of 2020.  Indeed, since July 2019, the Vermont senator Bernie Sanders hasn’t voted in the Senate at all. This is unprecedented based on the Senate voting results of previous years.

 

How missed votes by senators are affecting the Senate’s official workings?

Despite a lot of missed votes by senators and the senators being inactive in the 116th Congress, it does not seem to have created a big issue as of now.

It seems that in the reign of President Donald Trump, being busy with a little bit of an executive agenda and not completing the duties of their day job does not seem to bother the overall Senate effectiveness much.

Most of the candidates who run for the Democratic primary election to win the presidential nomination were seen to be overly-concentrated on finding someone new that can take the White House from Trump’s hold more than contributing to the legislative process.

And to add to that, it appears that for the situation of the United States Senate and missed votes, senators who were running for the presidency were not really missing many valuable events from the Senate either. It was stated by senator Chris Murphy that “As much as I think it’s pretty standard practice for Senators running for president to be out of the building, there’s also nothing happening here”

He added to that; there are days when he also wonders if he should take another day job because of the low pressure in the Capitol building works of the minority team senators.

Admittedly, the Democratic Senators who are on the United States Senate and missed votes list are now in the minority, and most of the votes these days are on judicial applicants. These nominees are pretty much unanimously opposed by candidates of 2020 that they are never able to overcome anyway.

The Senate Democratic Whip, Dick Durbin from Illinois, said that they do not legislate. They are dealing with the nominations strictly. And these require simple Senate majorities. Whether they (the minority) are present or not, it does not make much of a difference.

This is a fact important to note that there are six Democrat Senators who are not on the list of United States Senate missed votes, and they were not running for president in 2020. And they have been giving the most important and crucial votes on any critical and major legislation or nominations. Consider taking the decision to cancel the instruction of the Trump government, which lifted Obamacare exemptions prerequisites.

Even though Senator Susan Collins, a Republican, of Maine, went across and voted with the Democrats, it failed at a tally of 43-52. Needless to say, the outcome would not have been much different with Cory Booker, Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, and Michael Bennet voting as a yes.

But if these senators did vote, the final result of the vote tally would have ended up being at 48-52 instead, which is a bump from the present score, it is still a failure. A Democrat assistant told the senators that whenever the leaders require a major vote in the chamber, the management keeps in touch with the senators.

 

The Democrat Senators miss a crucial vote on the relief package: An incident where missed votes by senators made a difference:

Members of Congress were supposed to vote in Congress on an important issue recently. Republicans required 60 votes to move the proposal forward on Sunday. Most Americans would get $1,200 in cash payments by passing this bill.

It proposed to also extend unemployment benefits, along with bailing out businesses, states, and local governments. However, the procedural voting ended up in a draw of 47-47 just because of the missed votes by senators.

Patrick Leahy, who is also a Democratic Senator from Vermont, voted against this bill. In total, six non-voting members of Congress missed this vital vote. They were said to be in quarantine due to the possibility of being affected.

However, the Senate would finally pass a two trillion-dollar relief bill.

 

Former Absentee Senator on Absentee Senators of 116th Congress:

Missed votes by senators is not a new issue. A Republican senator from Florid, Marco Rubio, also faced major criticism from his opponents for being absent in the Senate duty while running for president in the 2016 election.

To counter-attack, Rubio recently tweeted, where he asked whether the absence of the reports of being absent in repetition from Senate voting of many Democratic Party Senators and that it is being supported by their colleagues is evidence of hypocrisy and double standard.

In another interview, Rubio said with a subtle grudge that he particularly was not opposing the candidate of 2020 elections but merely asking why there has not been enough news and stories on the United States Senate and missed votes from Democratic contenders. This stemmed from the 2016 incident he faced while doing the same thing.

He also added how it is impossible for someone to be on duty as a Senator at the same time as running the campaigns for the presidency. He was not criticizing them. Headed that when you are running for the presidency, it is just not feasible to be around on duty. But where were the incessant reports of stories about the Democrats, he questioned, even though Marco Rubio had missed 90 percent of the votes in his time in the Senate.

Well, another candidate from the 2016 GOP presidential process was the United States Senator Ted Cruz from Texas, who skipped 29 percent of Senate votes back in December 2015. Another United States Senator, John McCain, a Republican from Arizona, is said to have missed 80 percent of the votes in the 2016 election. So, needless to say, blaming only the Democrat senators is a tad bit unfair.

 

A detailed record of senators and missed votes in 116th Congress:

The detailed record of some members of Congress who missed votes in the recent times is given below.

Elizabeth Warren voting record:

A representative of Elizabeth Warren’s platform, the Senator of Massachusetts, Ashley Woolheater, said that Senator Warren has already launched three dozen bills in the Senate this year. It includes a proposal for the cancellation of the debt of students for 42 million student borrowers.

In recent times, they have seen her develop bipartisan proposals to honor representatives of the government who have failed to set a policy in motion and investigate supervisory matters.

Warren also implied how she would have voted in the Senate on that day if she was present. She announced this on the Elizabeth Warren platform, which is her website.

On the other hand, Michael Bennet has expressed that it is indeed a difficult task to find a sweet balance between carrying out the duties as a Senator and running for the presidency in the 2020 presidential election.

“I’ve tried to make sure that I’m here when I can to vote,” said Michael Bennet.

He also added that he had not done an analysis when asked about the Senate voting records of other 2020 election candidates.

However, the United States Senate missed vote senators Cory Booker, Kamala Harris, and Amy Klobuchar did not comply when requested to respond for comment. Although missing votes while also running for the presidency is fully consistent with the topic, it can sometimes hurt the reputation of a candidate. To think about it, it is counterproductive in some ways.

Kamala Harris skipped Senate votes for Campaign to win Democratic Presidential nomination:

 

The Senate took the votes from all the Senators on a bill concerning the disaster aid package to help California to rebuild after the wildfires had hit them, but Senator and the Vice Presidential nominee of Joe Biden Kamala Harris was in Sacramento, running her presidential campaigns when she was seeking the presidential nomination of Democrats, in support of labor unions. She is high up there on the list of United States Senate missed votes.

In a gap of only one day, Senator Harris was in Nevada for her campaign. In doing so, she had missed a Tuesday vote, which was at the start of a Republican concern to fasten up the confirmation of President Donald Trump’s legislative and special branch candidates.

Later on Wednesday, the Senate took more votes from the Senators, which included a landmark vote where the Republicans in the Senate used their proposal to streamline Trump’s nominations to complete their so-called nuclear choice.

But Kamala Harris missed that Senate vote as well, making it a very high percentage of United States Senate and missed votes list. The missing votes underlined the difficulty facing her and five of her peers in the Democratic Senate in their attempts to align day work with the growing needs of the presidential election campaign.

If he were to join the campaign, the Democratic  Presidential nominee Joe Biden would not have been tied to the Capitol. The Senators who are Republicans are not sitting around.

They are constantly noting the members who are missing votes from the Democratic Party. A few of the applicants fear that Republicans will drag their feet on the schedule with ballots at moments that are untimely. Senator Tim Kaine said that he believes you must have a single purpose regarding this if you’re trying to race. He wouldn’t believe you could be half-hearted.

Since her official statement, Senator Elizabeth Warren (Democrat, Mass.) has skipped only one vote. Many have been curious how old Senator Warren is. She is 71.

On the day after her official statement, two Sen. Amy Klobuchar (Democrat, Minnesota) have skipped a vote, and two Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (Democrat. New York) have skipped votes since that time. There were four votes ignored by Senator Cory Booker (Democrat – New Jersey), and one was a legislative vote on Attorney General William Barr’s agreement.

The majority of votes missed by Senators were administrative, and the results were not influenced by any of them. Even though they are not campaigning for congressional reelection, this is not strange for Senators to skip votes from time to time.

Nevertheless, Manley does not think about voting issues if the legislators are fully missing in action from the Senate. Therefore, the accusations of citizens becoming cast back are fortunate.

Senators also attracted criticism for their policy obligations in recent presidential elections for emphasizing their political efforts over voting. Reid also hopped in, trying to say the Florida senator must be prosecuted. He said it was “to repay the government taxpayer’s money for both the head of state as he was attempting to play.”

Pressured about his absences, Rubio referred to the votes which had been lost by Barack Obama throughout 2008, and which John Kerry ignored in 2004. In 2004, almost ninety percent of the congressional voting records and senate votes were missed by Kerry, while Obama in 2008 had a percentage of 65% in the United States Senate missed votes.

On Wednesday at the Capitol, Klobuchar was questioned whether she juggled her position in the Senate through the bid. The Democrat from Minnesota stated that she previously had a flood risk management briefing with the Governor of her State and that she was going to collaborate on financing for different programs with Tina Smith, a senator from Minnesota.

“It’s a well-worn tradition to go after a Senator’s attendance. But ultimately, the state the Senator is campaigning in is excited to receive them, and their home states are presumably excited that they are running for president,” said Michael Trujillo, a Democratic strategist.

He added that “If this is over the course of nine months or a year they are on the trail, it can become an issue for them. It really comes down to what they decide to do over the course of this calendar year and into next.”

Senator Tina Smith Voting Record:

A Democratic senator from Minnesota, Smith missed only 1.1% of votes. She has signed 49 bills in total.

Dan Sullivan Voting Record:

Dan Sullivan is a senator from the Republican Party in Alaska. He ranks lower in the list. He actively participated in most of the Senate roll call voting events. His sponsored bill count is 45, and co-sponsored bills are 246. The percentage of his missed votes is as low as 1.6%.

Martha McSally Voting Record:

Senator Martha McSally’s voting record from Arizona ranks pretty low as well. Senator McSally is a senator from the Republican Party. Her number of sponsored bills is 60, and the c-sponsored bills number 295. The missed votes percentage is only 1.5%.

 

Presidential Candidate Joe Biden’s voting record in the senate & the opposition:

With the election being held just in a month, let’s look at the Joe Biden voting record. By winning the Democratic nomination vote, Joe Biden has become the pioneer to try to defeat President Donald Trump in the November election.

Biden’s last serious adversary, the Vermont senator, Bernie Sanders, was eager to emphasize the Democratic tendencies of the retired US Vice-President as a Washington insider – and to distance himself from the public consciousness of the contemporary Democratic establishment. Today we address the obstacles that Joe Biden is now facing to be a Democratic leader. The Donald Trump campaign is already taking on some of the Vermont Senator’s campaign slogans.

Social Security:

The Vermont Senator’s attempts to improve his campaign have been the focus of Joe Biden’s inconsistent history of funding for US federal retirement benefits services. Mr. Biden has unwaveringly rejected spending on social safety reductions in this database on the public stage. In his platform, President Biden will extend the system if appointed, with a levy mostly on the wealthy funding this.

Abortion rights:

“Joe Biden in the past has voted for what is called the Hyde Amendment, that said that women could not use Medicaid dollars in order to protect their reproductive rights and get an abortion, “the Senator told supporters at a rally.

An electoral research survey from the FiveThirtyEight electoral prediction company website revealed that white women are the largest voting block to vote on Mr. Biden’s promotional prosperity. It is not shocking, considering the significance of women voters, for Joe Biden to be questioned in his vote on women’s healthcare.

Trade deals:

“Does anybody think that Joe can go to Michigan or Wisconsin or Indiana or Minnesota and say vote for me, I voted for those terrible trade agreements?” Sanders asked supporters, “I don’t think so.”

In 2016, Bernie Sanders sided on the generally pro-free trade side, while the same critique of Hillary Clinton led to the surprising victory by the Senate, Bernie Sanders, Protectionist and famous against his competitor Hillary Clinton in Michigan.

Joe Biden said he was voting for the North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta), which opponents argue processing in the United States has been effectively wiped out. Joe Biden asserted, nevertheless, that he is a “fair trader” who happens to believe that “we should treat other countries in a way they treat us” instead of a “free trader.”

This moment around four years ago, he feels that the reasoning against Joe Biden becomes less beneficial. As per the recent survey conducted by Gallup, 67 percent of Democrats now believe NAFTA was advantageous to the United States.

Big money:

This was one of Bernie’s strongest points in opposition to Joe Biden. In the discussion stage, the Senator criticized Joe Biden for soliciting donations with some well-heeled donors, as opposed to the political fundraiser of the Vermont representative, primarily sourced by contributions from smaller donors. Sanders continued to make references about the connections to the big business interests of the former vice-president.

 

What has been happening lately in the Senate due to the virus? 

Senate has returned to Washington in the final days of 116th Congress: Is it necessary?

In Washington, in the first week of its life, where the number of incidents of coronavirus is anticipated to surge later that week, two appointees were confirmed with almost no dissent. During the week, four distinct Senate committee members held a conference related to coronavirus.

It concentrated on everything from aviation experimentation to vetting nominees to supervise the disease outbreak disaster relief of the treasury. The complete absence of floor votes or even quantifiable agreements on rehabilitation initiatives left a few other senators wondering why Leader Mitch McConnell had brought them back to Capitol Hill through such a dangerous period.

Republican Senator Jim Risch of Idaho, clearly said on NBC News, “No,” when he was asked about the safety of attending the Capitol.

Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., said, “I just think it’s absurd, and frankly deeply offensive to people all around this country in crisis that we’re actually having a hearing on a judge that’s for a vacancy that is not even open until September,”

At 80, another of the Senate’s oldest leaders, Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., skipped both appointments and remained at home in DC. He came with his spouse to circumvent Trump’s filibuster of the War Powers Resolution just for the missed vote.

“Just being careful, we’ve been doing a lot of work with appropriations online,” he said. “I didn’t want to endanger my staff or myself,” he said.

A larger existence on Capitol Hill was achieved by Republican Senators, who met personally for meals daily, while the Democrats maintained a digital footprint, other than votes. On Thursday, almost all of the one hundred senators rushed outside of the Capitol.

Even the usual easy-going senators ignored the reporters, many of whom hurried to catch flights back home. However, it is not possible because airlines have strong links owing to the postponement of travel throughout the world. Others living in close proximity decided to return to the country, because there is still limited traffic congestion because there are stay-at-home restrictions in several regions.

“I’m driving, back and forth to Jersey. At least I am now. [Interstate] 95, all the way up — it’s a lot less busy than I’ve seen it, ever. People doing the right thing,” Booker told reporters on his way out of the Capitol doors.

When is the Senate vote now?

When there is a necessity, voting in the Senate is required. This vote is the final step in the legislative process.

The next senate vote is expected for the confirmation of the recent nominated Justice Amy Coney Barret who has been nominated by the president after the passing of Justice Ruth Ginsberg.

After passing a bill by the Senate and House of Representatives, it is then sent to the president for his approval or signature. The President can sign the bill or veto it.

The Senate can vote on a national emergency or other emergencies. It voted two times to overrule President Donald Trump’s emergency declaration. The Senate rebuked the President the second time over his attempt to fund a border wall without congressional approval.

It is helpful information for those who want to know how a senate vote is conducted. 

How to find Senate voting results?

Senate voting results today can be found online within an hour of the vote. The submissions do provide a brief explanation of the votes and also provide links to Congress.gov for the legislative messages. 

Majority parties:

Currently, the majority party of the senate is the Republican party. The “majority party” is a group with a majority of the vote or with a majority of seats in an alliance or caucus. If the vote is decided by a simple majority, that party becomes the majority party itself. However, in case of a tie, the Vice-President casts a tie-breaking vote to decide the matter in the senate.

 

Conclusion:

Missed votes by senators and representatives can have implications at certain times. A democratic setup requires the active participation of the legislatures in the legislation process. However, missed votes by senators negate this thing and can be detrimental to democratic practices in the country.

We are now officially less than a month from the presidential election. With all eyes waiting for the poll’s results on the November 3 night, we see there are frequent records of United States Senate and missed votes by some Senators.

After researching the reasoning, it is no surprise that the incidents are happening regularly. While Joe Biden and Donald Trump are head-on against each other, we will have to wait to see who will reside in the White House for the next four.