Or maybe not (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eG6X-xtVask).

What do you think, should this be "legal"? Should the law be enforced?


Rather than booing at them for doing it (I personnally find it hilarious that Reps vote for Dems and Dems for Reps in the voting flurry of buttons' push :D), what is your view on my title?

Is it really doable? (not to mention the "no bathroom break" excuse ;) )

Getting people to vote in the first place is the most difficult part. The video was amusing; I wonder how many state legislatures do that.

A big cry over bathroom breaks. Maybe my experience is a little limited, but based on vacations and perks state lawmakers get over say, honest working individuals, I don't have any sympathy. They get plenty of breaks, much more than the average joe I'd bet. Great excuse for unethical conduct. Same with lawmakers who miss a vote. You're in office to do a job, snap to it or move over.

The video was funny, but a little infuriating as well. Sort of comes across as, "We know weshouldn't do it, but we do, now what are you going to do about it?"

That made me more mad than anything. Geez.

Maryland does something thats kinda weird ... though I never saw them voting for someone else.
They spam click yes, no, yes, no, yes, no in a weird game of chicken trying to make sure they get the actual value of their vote before the hammer falls. They can keep changing their vote until the hammer hits and then the votes are locked in. What happens is people end up voting for the wrong thing at times.

People tend to do the least ammt of work possible, till the boss comes around....
Then, they work really hard, to show him/her how valuable they are....

That was disturbing. Everyone of those legislatures should be found of misconduct according to the rules they posted at the end of that segment. It makes me think this is probably happening in other states too. I'm pissed.

Well I'm certain something will be done after the news broadcast. And everyone gives the media such a bad rap :P

What pisses me off the most, during an ethics class in highschool, we went to state legislature for a field trip. A few slacker friends and I sat in the corner and just watched instead of going on the tour. We saw this one dude doing this shit. We kept laughing at him because he was running around like a chicken with his head cut off. We brought it up to our teacher at the time, and she said, "oh its alright, they do it all the time!" I knew it was bullshit. Its funny how that same teacher went into politics the next year or so.

I got the impression that it's just informal proxy voting. The one person left is probably voting how his neighbors asked him to. While it's technically against the rules, I doubt there's anything fishy actually going on.

If Republicans were really using the Democrats' own votes (and vice versa), contrary to their desires, do you think for one second that there would be an empty chair on that floor at vote time?

Well the poor attendance at the votes when the people are paying them to represent them and to be there is a problem regardless. It makes the illusion that the representatives have great attendance when its obvious that there is less than half of the representatives present at vote time.

Say it's a vote related to abortion somehow.

We all instantly know how 95% of the representatives will vote. A Texan Republican sitting attentively in his seat isn't suddenly going to be compelled to vote counter to the desires of his constituents and entire political party.

A lot of votes are predestined that way.

Is it really that big a deal, as long as the votes aren't tampered with? Do we have nothing better to worry about than some guys proxy voting so they can get dinner and use the pisser?

Is it really that big a deal, as long as the votes aren't tampered with? Do we have nothing better to worry about than some guys proxy voting so they can get dinner and use the pisser?

Yeah it is a big deal...they can cast their own votes and wait to eat and piss. From what I saw the actual vote process took less than one second...is it too much to ask a politician to delay a piss for a second?

So you're saying that having only 30% of the people who you elect to represent you (and they are only in session like 4 months of the year mind you, and only 5 days a week ... ) show up for work is ok?

I dunno where you work, but generally if I only have to work 140 days (sans weekends) I'm expected to show up for all of those days. The voting is an hour or two a day tops, the rest of the day they are in committee - and there's plenty of time to go to the bathroom before and after the voting sessions.

I guess it depends on how many martinis you have at lunch....

Dear Sanchek:

It (legislators not showing up for their own votes, especially by the rampant proportions shown on the video) matters because it's a *symptom* of the lack of concern about integrity that the legislators themselves have, even if they're only doing it for the sake of convenience - not to mention it doesn't exactly inspire confidence in the integrity of the process itself. I think it speaks volumes about just how fundamentally greased and corrupt the two party machine in many states and the federal goverment has become both that this goes on to such an extent, and that people would be blase' about it.

If state legislators are elected to *represent* us, and acceeded the power to make decisions on our behalf, the very least they can do is show up to mash the damned button, even if their vote was bought off (but that's another issue). I realize that in some states serving in the Legislature is not considered a 'full time' job and so the pay is quite low, but let's face it, few of these folks are exactly hurting by virtue of the fact that they could afford to mount election campaigns in the first place.

I got no sleep last night and so this came out a bit garbled, but yeah, I think it's a problem. Representation is a job that should be taken seriously and with at least as much concern for the integrity of votes as we see applied to public voting.

Regards,
Nydia

Is adequate representation really dependent on whose finger pushes a button? To me, that seems absolutely ridiculous.

Should I be incensed because my correspondence to the legislature is filtered by a secretary or intern?

Those two things aren't comparable. Coorespondance from the public is filtered by staff largely because of the sheer volume (and also because it isn't being *directly* used to enact public policy which affects others); it makes sense that the wheat be sorted from the chaff in terms of what is relevant to that representative, so to speak, although, too, this is certainly subject to abuse in several forms.

When it comes to voting, yes, it does matter whose finger pushes the button, because otherwise one can *never* be sure that the intent of that legislator or the wishes of his/her constituents was enacted.

Because a representative *already* represents a proxy (of the people), he doesn't (or shouldn't) get to abdicate and choose one; after all, it is his primary responsibility, and what he stood for election for.

Regards,
Nydia

P.S. I recognize, of course, that there are occasions where a representative may be out of the area on a government sponsored trip or some such; if he has to miss an important vote as a result (one that his constituents have a lot of interest in), then he/she should prioritize carefully and be ready to be held accountable to his consituents as to why she had to miss a vote. In the case of situations where a proxy could be legitimately *needed* (illness, etc), if procedures are to be put in place to handle such exigencies, they should be formalized (as in, a submitted vote from the hospital or formal written procedure with an accountability chain) so that the integrity of the vote can be assured.

Like I said before, I very much doubt anyone's actually changing intended votes or being careless about how they vote for their colleagues. It would only take a handful of mis-votes for that room to be full at vote time (and for some enemies to be created).

They stand on their voting record and are always conscious of it. You can't seriously be suggesting that they're not worried at all about what vote is cast.

I dunno where you work, but generally if I only have to work 140 days (sans weekends) I'm expected to show up for all of those days. The voting is an hour or two a day tops, the rest of the day they are in committee - and there's plenty of time to go to the bathroom before and after the voting sessions.
Where I work, I get paid for results, not for sitting in a chair. So do those representatives. They are elected to do a job, not to get paid $x/hr while sitting in a specific chair waiting to press a button like a side-show monkey.

If they know ahead of time that they're going to vote a particular way, I couldn't care less of they find a more efficient way of doing things. Aren't we always complaining that the government is too inefficient?!

The republicans voting for democrats and vice versa and the people racing to get to another seat (you noticed one guy even voted for a guy actually sitting in a chair) should at least lend some skepticism. And if these are our elected officials, should we be that skeptical about who is gonna vote how? If they are absent this much during votes, why don't you believe they're also absent during committees?

I think you're attributing way too much weight to the physical vote. I can't imagine any reason to strongly correlate their pressing a button with their participation in other aspects of the legislation.

Instead of going the FUD route, how about proving it? I think if there were any real malfeasance to be found, that news station would have been all over the chance to break a more substantial story.

lol this is my local news channel. I wonder how come they couldnt do that type of voting a few years back when half the house Dems. took off out of state to avoid voting on pending legeslation.

Then again it looked like you had to insert a key to have a vote placed.

On every job I have had in my forty years in the work-force, it was expected of me to make an effort to not need to take any excess breaks other than the ones proscribed by the employer; but, "comfort" breaks are sometimes unavoidable, and always tolerated, as long as they are not abused.

Our elected Senators and Representatives are employees we have hired to do a specific job, and the fact that such voting takes place is less an indictment of the employee than of the employer. It is the average voting citizen's fault that our government has gone in the shitter, so to speak. The only time we express any outrage is when something hits the five o-clock news, or is on the front page of the newspapers. The fact is, if even 1/3 of the small number of people who vote would actually pay attention to the votes cast by their candidates, and correspond with those candidates' offices, and raise questions about absenteeism during votes, it is possible that some change, however minute, could occur.

But, I once believed in a jolly fat man in a red suit too.

Actually, some legislation I ran into just this weekend is a good example of why the button pushing doesn't concern me.

We were eating lunch downtown in Augusta Saturday, when we were approached by some girls handing out (pushing) pamphlets from planned parenthood. They verbally told us that it was concerning a Georgia House resolution that would potentially make some contraception illegal. It mentioned that in the flier too.

I was skeptical and somewhat interested, so when I got home I looked up the resolution in question (http://www.legis.state.ga.us/legis/2007_08/pdf/hr536.pdf) (which reinforced my opinion that the pamphlet was alarmist at best).

Now, take a look at who my representative (http://www.legis.state.ga.us/legis/2007_08/house/bios/jonesJan/jonesJanBio.htm) is. No matter who presses her button, I doubt there is a question what vote her record will reflect on HR536.

I was waiting for that argument to come up - the thought that much of what legislators are voting on is actually junk. You'd think if they didn't like it, they'd pass legislation to help control it, perhaps? Legislatures certainly don't have any problems voting on other issues which affect them, including pay raises. However, even if that's true, it's still their job, and as a voter I expect them to do it. Unless, of course, I can take a cue from my leaders and stop doing work that I consider meaningless.

Without being fired, of course.

If you can get the same job done, while eliminating busywork, why would you expect to be fired? After all, it's not Gross Domestic Effort...

Maybe if we all just looked at it as sub-contracting we could tolerate it more...> Hey I know, lets hire those illegal mexicans to come in an push the buttons!

Hey I know, lets hire those illegal mexicans to come in an push the buttons!

Doing the jobs that no Americans want to?


:rolleyes:

Just shows there are only a few in charge of the house even though we think we have lots...lol

Heh, any time I see the expression "One man, one vote" I can't help but think of this:
Ankh-Morpork had dallied with many forms of government and had ended up with that form of democracy known as One Man, One Vote. The Patrician was the Man; he had the Vote.