Show I IN THE NATION Sacramento One Man One Vote Non-Vote By Nancy Vogel Los Angeles Times Whenever the California state stat Assembly votes on a bill there there's theresa therea a good chance Jerome Horton Horto will press neither the green yes nor the red no button on his desk He says abstaining makes make him powe powerful ul When you vote yes or no said the Democrat fro from m Inglewood it takes you out o othe of the negotiations and I dont don't ever eve r want to be out of the game When lawmakers cant can't get th the votes they need to pass their measures they rush to court th the e undecided in hopes of changing g an abstention to a yes o on n another round of voting That gives the abstainer leverage to argue for changes in the bill What Horton sees as clout others see as the shirking of a lawmakers lawmaker's essential duty One of Hortons Horton's Democratic colleagues Assemblyman John Laird of Santa Cruz almost always picks yes or noI noI noI no I just think I was sent up here hereto to vote Laird said A lawmaker has the right to abstain from any or every everyone one one of the roughly votes that occur during his hisor hisor hisor or her year two-year term But regardless regardless regardless regard regard- less of the reason a purposeful dodge an absence due to illness visit the withheld withheld with with- a to restroom a held he ld vote has the same effect as ano a ano ano no vote California's legislative rules unlike those in a few other states require bills to be passed by a jb majority ir of t. t 7 lawmakers a k A Ai i not x a t L those who happen to tobe to- to present be present resent and In the only recent study of voting non-voting by California lawmakers lawmakers lawmakers law law- makers researchers found that Democrats decline to vote more often than Republicans 32 percent percent percent per per- cent of the time tune on average on bills that fail Lawmakers skip votes on bills that run from the arcane to the important from banning the slaughter of farm animals on school campuses to legalizing gay marriage Veterans say the thee practice is increasingly common Bills that dont don't pass the first time may be brought up repeatedly repeatedly repeatedly repeat repeat- edly by the author and subsequent subsequent subsequent quent votes showed the diesel measure would likely fail In the end Torrico abstained opting not to attach his name to a losing proposition that might have offended one of his districts district's big employers It was going nowhere said Torrico And I said What's th the e point of me being on the bill |