Lawmakers bend rules to help each other
Absentees often cast vote, state finds
NASHVILLE — A longtime practice in the Tennessee legislature of lawmakers voting for colleagues who are momentarily away from their desks is coming under new scrutiny after some were discovered not to be even at the statehouse.
One veteran Memphis member, Rep. Lois DeBerry, a Democrat, turned back the $174 daily expense payment for a day in which she was absent but listed as voting “present” on the House floor.
DeBerry said colleagues erroneously assumed she was running late because her office failed to file an absence letter that would have shown her as “excused” on the chamber’s roll- call board.
Rep. Mark White, R-Memphis, acknowledged punching the electronic desktop vote buttons of seat mates when they are out for restroom breaks or meetings with constituents outside the chamber.
Officials agree that while voting for colleagues momentarily away from desks on the House and Senate f loors is a longstanding tradition, a Nashville television station’s recent report may lead to a crackdown on abuses. The WTVF report included two East Tennessee Republicans trading out parts of long days on the floor and voting for each other for extended periods.
House Speaker Beth Harwell ordered a review of House rules after the report showed several members routinely pushing the desktop vote buttons for others just before the legislature adjourned May 1.
Chief Clerk Joe McCord said Harwell “has directed me to come up with some proposals to take to the Rules Committee to see if they want to address it and adopt them.”
WTVF video also showed Reps. Jimmy Naifeh, D-Covington, and Joe Towns, D-Memphis, pushing the roll- call button on DeBerry’s desk, listing her present on a day she wasn’t. She said her office should have turned in a letter asking for an excused absence but didn’t, likely leaving her colleagues to think she was only running late. Excused absences are noted on the voting displays beside the member’s name.
WTVF said the so - called “ghost voting” is bipartisan and widespread. In one video scene, White, Vance Dennis, R-Savannah, Dale Ford, R-Jonesborough and John Ragan, R-Oak Ridge, appeared
to push the vote buttons of their desk mates not seen in the video: Reps. Jimmy Matlock, R-Lenoir City, Dennis Roach, R-Rutledge, Ryan Williams, RCookeville, and Art Swann, RMaryville, respectively.
It later showed four other Republicans from East and Middle Tennessee apparently voting for desk mates.
WTVF said Ford and Roach — colleagues from Northeast Tennessee — traded off with each other on one long day, with Ford voting for Roach, who arrived an hour and a half late.
Confronted on camera, Ford Lois said, “It’s neiDeBerry ther illegal or immoral. There’s nothing wrong with it. It’s done all the time.”
The report, rebroadcast on sister stations in Memphis and Knoxville, was the most recent expose’ of a practice that members say is only a convenience for one another. Members sometimes have marked agendas on their desk listing how they intend to vote on each bill.
Rep. Bill Dunn, R-Knoxville, told WATE-TV of Knoxville that “all 99 (House) members, all 33 senators do it . It doesn’t change the outcome of the vote at all.”
The system at the statehouse is different from Congress, where U.S. representatives and senators must use electronic vote cards to cast votes.
In Nashville, House Rule 29 declares, in part, that “All members casting votes by the electronic roll- call machine shall be at their proper desks at the time for voting with the exception of the Speaker and sponsor moving passage of the bill under consideration.” (The speaker presides at the podium and the bill sponsor is usually there explaining the bill.)
But by long-running practice, the rule is in force only when the speaker declares it’s in effect — “going under the rule.” That usually applies on a contentious bill where the outcome is uncertain. Most routine bills that reach the f loor pass by heavy majorities, often unanimously, and the outcome is rarely in doubt.
McCord and lawmakers distinguish between casting votes for colleagues away from their desks temporarily and voting for members who are not present at all, which is not supposed to occur.
Towns told The Commercial Appeal he has never voted for DeBerry but “punched her in” on the roll call only if he Joe knew she was Towns late arriving. Naifeh, a former House speaker, told WTVF he pushed the roll- call for DeBerry his seat mate, one morning when she called to say she was running late.
DeBerry said that on the other occasion when she was absent for the full session, “My staff should have turned in an excused absence and they didn’t. Once Jimmy didn’t see an ‘E’ up there (on the vote board), he probably thought I was there. People are going in and out. You’ve got to go back and forth to the Senate to check on the status of your bill. Constituents send in notes for you to come out and talk. So people vote for each other,” she said.
White said, in an e -mail message, “Anytime a seat mate is out of their seat either carrying a bill in the well, or across the room talking to a colleague or called out of the room by a constituent or even the restroom, our seat mates ask us to vote for them according to their instructions. Once a vote is called for on the floor by the speaker we have seven seconds to vote and it is impossible to get back to your seat in time so it is common practice to extend this courtesy.” Mark White