Change of voting record?
Josh Tauberer
> How can I find out what a particular representative voted upon and
> then went back to change his/her vote? I understand that this is done
> very often so that the hometown folks think that he/she voted one way,
> but that they go back and change the actual vote recorded later.
Does anyone know to what degree if any this is true?
From what I've seen, Members can revise the Congressional Record to
insert "Had I been there I would have voted...". Are the roll calls in
the CR ever revised to actually change votes? Are the House and Senate
vote webpages ever revised?
--
- Josh Tauberer
- GovTrack.us
"Yields falsehood when preceded by its quotation! Yields
falsehood when preceded by its quotation!" Achilles to
Tortoise (in "Godel, Escher, Bach" by Douglas Hofstadter)
Chris Kinnan
voting period (and some do nearly every vote, they watch to see how
their state colleagues are voting or they get arm-twisted) but once
the vote is closed that's the official record and its not changed.
citizencontact
vote, a representative has no real way to change their vote. However,
there are lots of opportunities to claim if something was supported or
opposed. And I mean lots.
A few of many examples:
The rules committee in the House creates the rules upon a bill,
amendments to the bill and how the amendments are accepted. Under
"king of the hill" or "queen of the hill" rules by which the
amendments are voted on, it is possible to vote on an amendment that
is a substitute version or major change of the bill. At the end there
will be several votes for the representative to claim is the true
intent. And since the rules are decided by the majority party which
maintains a disproportionate percentage on the powerful committee, the
minority is usually at the mercy of how the amendments on how they can
put political spin on their votes. Also, the bills can and often do
include "killer" sections that mean that a representative must vote
for the whole bill or risk appearing to be against how the bill is
described. The Republicans were able to set up many votes in Congress
to get the Democrats to appear to be voting against "supporting" the
troops by including pieces that were disdainful to the Democrats and
which might even not make it to the final vote. Oh yes, legislation is
often passed in slightly different forms in the Senate and the House,
and that sets up the possibility of having a vote on a House version
that will be different from the version that makes it through the
conference committee. And I haven't even gotten to the naming of bills
or early committee votes.
For the reasons above, looking at the raw roll call votes with no
context means almost nothing. This is why advocacy groups pick and
choose votes that they think are most relevant to how they believe
reality (or not) should be reflected. And, oh yes, there are even
procedural votes with no real meaning that allow "mavericks" to appear
to be voting against their leadership or party based on raw
statistics.
So, of course, representatives cannot change their votes once the
gavel has struck and the vote has been permanently recorded. As if
that had a direct relationship to how anyone would explain where that
representative stood on an issue. It is up to us to follow the news
and other means to figure out where people stand on issues and whether
they did everything they could to support or oppose something.
Considering the raw votes and record often do not convey reality,
relying on them is .....
Daniel
On Jun 28, 3:11 pm, "Chris Kinnan" <kin...@gmail.com> wrote:
> No, at least in the House, they can change votes during the 15 minute
> voting period (and some do nearly every vote, they watch to see how
> their state colleagues are voting or they get arm-twisted) but once
> the vote is closed that's the official record and its not changed.
>
Josh Tauberer
on GovTrack if you don't object.
This made me realize that the question must be just one of many
questions people have, and that somewhere someone has the answer.
So, today at noon I added a new feature to GovTrack where users can
submit questions on any bill, and submit answers to posed questions.
Just since then seven fairly substantive questions have been asked.
("I've seen the first-time home buyer credit described as being for
unoccupied property or for homes in foreclosure - to which will the tax
credit for first time buyers of homes actually apply?")
I don't know what to expect if there are enough knowledgeable users to
answer the questions, but we'll see.
--
- Josh Tauberer
- GovTrack.us
"Yields falsehood when preceded by its quotation! Yields
falsehood when preceded by its quotation!" Achilles to
Tortoise (in "Godel, Escher, Bach" by Douglas Hofstadter)