Ghost voting on Texas taxes...

Even in Texas, the press is liberal. How can you tell? Just look at this story surrounding a recent tax vote in the Texas House. Here's what happened:

The first vote failed by a narrow margin.
The Republican leadership ordered a roll-call. The roll-call revealed that two Democratic members of the House who had been recorded as voting no were not actually present, resulting in a tie vote.
A Republican representative, who had a pairing agreement with an absent Democratic representative, decided to violate that agreement and vote in favor of the bill.
A revote was held. The bill passed, 74-73.

For those who don't know, a pairing agreement is when two legislators who plan to vote in opposite directions both agree not to vote instead. Instead of actually bothering to vote, they can each take a day off.

Faced with this account, what story do you write? You can write about how two Democratic members of the House voted without actually being present, one of them violating their pairing agreement with the fraudulent vote. This practice is known as ghost voting, and in my opinion is legislative fraud. Legislators must be present to vote. It's their job.

Or, you can write about how a Republican violated the pairing agreement, and scrupulously avoid even implying the obvious -- that the Democrat who was not present had already violated the agreement by voting fraudulently. The Republican leadership claims that the agreement is non-binding regardless. Obviously, it's not exactly honorable to violate the agreement -- for either side. (My understanding of this practice is that it is usually used when both legislators plan to be absent, thus rendering violations impossible.)

But seriously, folks.

Which is more important -- a legislator who is present deciding to vote, or two legislators who are not present voting fraudulently, including the Democratic representative with the pairing agreement?

Posted on 2005-07-08 11:28:53.0 by matthew@triggerfinger.org

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