The Mackinac Center for Public Policy has released its annual report on state lawmaker attendance. It’s no surprise that more Michigan lawmakers missed votes this year due to COVID, although Mackinac Center legal analyst Jack McHugh tells WSJM News they still made their best efforts.
“We saw a different result,m but less drastic than many might have anticipated,” McHugh said. “The legislative leaders made very diligent efforts to schedule sessions in a way that would not prevent members from attending.”
Michigan’s 38 senators and 110 representatives missed 3,791 total roll call votes in 2020, compared to 768 last year. McHugh says the numbers used to be much higher, before the Mackinac Center started tracking lawmaker attendance.
“When we started this, back in 2001, there were a handful of legislators every year, in any given year, who just weren’t showing up for work.”
McHugh says if your state lawmaker missed a lot of votes in a given year, look into why before getting upset. He says when a legislator misses work, it’s usually due to an illness. Southwest Michigan state lawmakers had strong attendance in 2020. State Representatives Pauline Wendzel, Brad Paquette, and Mary Whiteford all missed zero votes. State Representative Beth Griffin missed 12 out of 1,027. In the state Senate, Aric Nesbitt missed zero votes, while Kim LaSata, who herself had a bout with COVID-19, missed just one vote. You can see the Mackinac Center’s full Michigan Votes report right here.
