Ghost Voting

From: Upfront, Volume 10, Issue 1, March 2005, Common Cause/Pennsylvania Only in Pennsylvania Amazing Disgrace By Walt Schwenger, Secretary Remember “The Limbo”? For those of you who are over 45 years of age or nostalgia buffs, you will recall this dance as one where dancers get as low as they can go to slide under a very low bar without falling down. Since this closely resembles the modus operandi of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, I recommend that “The Limbo” be adopted as the official House dance. You see, a few weeks ago this august body adopted rules determining how it would operate for the next two years. These set the bar of legislative behavior lower than ever when a majority of the members was willing to bend over far enough to slide through a new rule permitting “ghost voting” on the floor of the House. Of course, instead of “ghost voting” it’s euphemistically called ”legislative leave.” Whatever it’s called, it means that House members don’t have to vote on important issues or participate in debate on legislation and amendments. By adopting this rule, the Pennsylvania House joins the Pennsylvania Senate as the only two legislative bodies in the nation that permit lawmakers to turn their votes over to their floor leader for the day, and allow the leader to vote for them as the leader sees fit. To take advantage of this “Get out of accountability free card” all a House member has to do is show up for the day’s initial roll call and then he or she is free to hang out somewhere in the “Harrisburg area” doing so-called official business. To add insult to injury, the House also passed a temporary rule prohibiting any legislator from calling for a vote to modify or eliminate the “ghost voting” section of the rules. So not only is this now the rule, but no member can move to change it! So what are the real effects of this rule? First it reduces legislators’ accountability to the voters. Second, informed and contemplative decision-making will diminish further. Lawmakers won’t even have to show up for floor debates to have their votes cast. Unless voters and reporters carefully examine the entire legislative journal for “voting days,” legislators’ voting records will reflect that they were present and voting when, in fact, they may not have been in the Capitol at all. Is it really too much to expect that members should actually be present to listen to debate before voting? Isn’t that part of their responsibility as elected officials? Isn’t actually being present and participating in the legislative process at least as important as visiting with a lobbyist, an interest group, or a constituent? In fact, with proper scheduling, those conflicts need not exist. In addition to allowing the lawmaker to miss important debates and votes in person, this voting arrangement will also have another unintended or, perhaps, intended consequence. It allows floor leaders, who find themselves four or five votes short of passing a bill they want, to entice fellow legislators who are mildly in opposition to a particular measure to take “legislative leave.” Then the leader can use the “ghost” votes to pass the measure. When constituents of these proxy-voted lawmakers complain about the member’s vote, the “ghost” legislator can simply blame his leadership for voting counter to his true intentions while he was off the floor. Does this sound like plausible deniability or just irresponsibility? This is a bad rule just waiting to be abused by a member or a floor leader. It is unnecessary and it should be repealed. The legislature should stop doing “The Limbo” –how low can they go? – when it comes to their own behavior. We should not add “ghost voting” to the litany of irresponsible and unaccountable government practices for which Pennsylvania has become infamous: no campaign contribution limits, no lobbyist disclosure, weak public access to government records, WAMs; the list goes on. Pennsylvania does not need to continuously end up at or near the bottom of virtually every measure of government integrity. We should and can do better. The Pennsylvania House must stop “dancing,” repeal this irresponsible rule and begin to get our Commonwealth out of this amazing “state of disgrace.” Ghost Voting: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly The following is the voting record on the ghost-voting rule. The key vote was on House Resolution 2, which prohibited representatives from offering amendments to improve the rules or remove the bad provisions inserted into this new version of the rule. [The good vote was a no vote on House Resolution 2. The bad vote was a yes vote.] The Good: (REPUBLICANS) Armstrong, Browne, Creighton, Denlinger, Ellis, Forcier, Gabig, Hutchinson, Keller, Mackereth, Maher, Metcalfe, Nailor, Nickol, Rapp, Rohrer, Steil, R. Stevenson, True. (DEMOCRATS) Bebko-Jones, Belardi, Belfonti, Biancucci, Buxton, Caltagirone, Casorio, Cawley, Corrigan, Costa, Curry, DeLuca, Eachus, Fabrizio, Frankel, Freeman, George, Gerber, Gergely, Goodman, Grucela, Haluska, Hanna, Harhai, Josephs, Kirkland, Kotik, Leach, Lescovitz, Manderino, Mann, Markosek, McCall, Melio, Mundy, Myers, Pellone, Petrarca, Petrone, Pistella, Ramaley, Reiger, Roberts, Roebuck, Santoni, Shaner, Shapiro, Solobay, Staback, Tangretti, Tigue, Walko, Washington, Waters, Wheatley, Wojnaroski, Yewcic, Youngblood, Yudichak. The Bad: (REPUBLICANS) Adolph, Allen, Argall, Baker, Baldwin, Barrar, Bastian, Benninghoff, Birmelin, Boyd, Bunt, Cappelli, Causer, Civera, Clymer, Cornell, Crahalla, Dally, DiGirolamo, Divens, J. Evans, Fairchild, Feese, Fichter, Fleagle, Flick, Gannon, Geist, Gillespie, Gingrich, Godshall, Good, Grell, Habay, Harhart, Harper, Harris, Hasay, Hennessey, Herman, Hershey, Hess, Hickernell, Kauffman, Kenney, Killion, Leh, Maitland, Major, Marisco, McGill, McIlhattan, McIlhinney, McNaughton, Micozzie, Millard, R. Miller, S. Miller, Mustio, O’Brien, O’Neill, Payne, Perzel, Petry, Phillips, Pickett, Pyle, Quigley, Raymond, Reed, Reichley, Ross, Rubley, Sather, Scavello, Schroder, Semmel, B. Smith, Sonney, Stairs, Stern, T. Stevenson, E. Taylor, J. Taylor, Turzai, Wilt, Wright, Zug. (DEMOCRATS) Bishop, Blackwell, Blaum, Butkovitz, Daley, Dermody, DeWeese, Donatucci, D. Evans, Gruitza, W. Keller, Lederer, McGeehan, Oliver, Preston, Readshaw, Rooney, Ruffing, Stettler, Sturla, Surra, Thomas, Veon, Wansacz, Williams. The Ugly: Sam Smith (R-Punxsutawney) led an aggressive effort to prevent lawmakers from offering any amendments to improve the rules or strip out irresponsible sections. The Very Good: Steve Samuelson (D-Bethlehem), Greg Vitali (D-Havertown), Christopher Sainato (D-New Castle). Samuelson led valiant floor opposition, attempting to persuade colleagues of the irresponsibility of ghost (a.k.a. proxy) voting on the House floor. Sainato made an impassioned plea for lawmakers to do the right thing. Vitali engaged in a variety of parliamentary maneuvers in an attempt to force lawmakers vote on the record specifically on ghost voting. He also attempted to get votes on new provisions to improve the rules. Not Voting: (REPUBLICANS) Saylor, Watson; (DEMOCRATS) Cohen, Cruz, James, LaGrotta, Levdansky.