Abilene Reporter News

Media pushes vote records

By Monica Wolfson / Scripps Howard Austin Bureau
April 3, 2004

AUSTIN — Texas media are advocating that the Texas House and Senate record every vote that occurs in the Legislature so voters can see how lawmakers voted on bills and amendments at every stage of the legislative process.

While Rep. Dan Branch, R-Dallas, is investigating ways to get the Legislature to record more votes, lawmakers and state officials said recording every vote would slow the legislative process, cost the state more money and even chill debate.

The Legislature meets for only five months every two years. The next legislative session begins in January.

Lawmakers make thousands of votes every session on a variety of legislation including second and third reading of bills, amendments to bills, adoption of conference committee reports and constitutional joint resolutions.

In the 2003 legislative session the Texas House recorded 951 votes, an increase from 649 in 2001, but there were at least 3,200 votes that went unrecorded. The Texas Senate took 3,449 recorded votes, but at least 1,000 votes went unrecorded.

If the Texas and Senate House were to record a vote on every piece of legislation and amendment proposed in the Legislature, it would cost at least $330,000 in extra costs, state officials said.

It costs about $100 to record a vote in the Texas House and $50 per vote in the Texas Senate. In the House a vote takes a page in the daily journal, as the vote must list how each of the 150 members voted. In the Senate a vote takes about half a page in the daily journal as the Senate has only 31 members. The Texas House prints 1,275 copies of its daily journal every day and the Texas Senate makes 800 copies of its daily journal. The $330,000 figure includes printing costs and labor required to publish the journals.

"If it was $2 million per session it would be worth the money," said Donnis Baggett, president of the Texas Daily Newspaper Association and publisher and editor of The Eagle in Bryan-College Station. "How do you have accountability if you don’t have a record? ... If there is a justification for raising a tax, the public’s right to know and lawmaker accountability would certainly be it."

Any lawmaker, in both the House and Senate, can request a record vote if they have two members supporting the request.

"If anybody wants a recorded vote they can ask for one," said Bob Richter, spokesman for House Speaker Tom Craddick, R-Midland. "The Speaker’s position is it’s expensive and time consuming, but if it’s what members want they can have it any time they want."

Lawmakers are discouraged from asking for too many recorded votes because then they are labeled a troublemaker, Baggett said.

"The ramifications (of asking for a lot of recorded votes) would be punitive ?" Baggett said. "It can affect your committee assignments and passage of your bills. It’s not in your political interest to ask for a lot of record votes when it’s not in the leadership interest to have a lot of record votes."

Branch said lawmakers are not discouraged from asking for record votes. Branch is looking at either filing a bill or recommending a House rule to have the legislative body record more votes, but said he has to balance the need for open government with keeping government moving and not chilling debate on the floor.

There are pros and cons to recording votes, lawmakers said. Recording votes allows voters to see how lawmakers voted.

But in the legislative process many lawmakers will vote for bills so long as they are unrecorded in deals they make with other lawmakers, officials said.

Lawmakers will also vote for amendments for a bill, but then vote against the bill, a political strategy that can be misconstrued, said Rep. Bob Hunter, R-Abilene.

"People can vote to extend debate on a bill, but it’s only to listen to more debate, not because they are supportive of the issue," Hunter said.

Branch supports requiring a recorded vote on third reading of a bill, explaining that the public should know the final vote.

Although Hunter says most controversial bills get recorded votes, some controversial amendments are passed on voice votes, including allowing the state to seize the homes of certain deceased nursing home residents.

Secretary of the Senate Patsy Spaw said the public can view the Legislature’s business easily now that cable and the Internet broadcast hearings and sessions.

"There are so many voice votes because it’s unanimous," Spaw said. "I wonder if you’ll fill up the journals and not be able to find the real votes."

Austin bureau writer Monica Wolfson can be reached at (512) 334-6642 or wolfsonm@scripps.com.