WASHINGTON, D.C. — Club for Growth Foundation today released its Missed Votes Mississippi scorecard for the Legislature’s 2021 regular session. The newly launched Missed Votes Scorecards calculate how often lawmakers show up to vote and how often they miss votes.
Lawmakers miss votes for a whole host of reasons, including medical issues, family concerns, prior commitments, purely political motivations, or other reasons. The Club for Growth Foundation generally doesn’t analyze why a lawmaker has missed a vote and is simply publishing this quantified information for educational purposes only.
According to Club for Growth Foundation President David McIntosh, “Constituents need to know the missed votes records of their representatives so they can decide for themselves if elected officials are avoiding a difficult vote or have a legitimate reason for missing a particular vote. Sadly, this information is often not available, and that is why the Club for Growth Foundation is publishing Missed Votes scorecards.”
This scorecard is based on a review of all floor votes taken in the Mississippi Legislature from January 5, 2021 to March 31, 2021. There are inherent limitations in judging the overall qualifications of any legislator based on how many votes he or she has missed, and the Club for Growth Foundation does not endorse or oppose any legislator for public office.
Key Insights
Mississippi Senate
The average Mississippi senator missed 4 percent of 772 total floor votes, with Republican senators on average missing 4 percent of all floor votes and Democrat senators on average missing 2 percent of all floor votes. Sen. Joey Fillingane (SD-41) missed the most votes – 309 votes out 772 – for a score of 40% missed votes. By not missing a single vote, the following senators received a perfect attendance score:
- Robert Jackson (SD-11)
- Sollie Norwood (SD-28)
- Mike Thompson (SD-48)
- Bart Williams (SD-15)
Mississippi House of Representatives
The average Mississippi House member missed 3 percent of 773 total floor votes, with Republican members on average missing 3 percent of all floor votes and Democrat members on average missing 4 percent of all floor votes. Tom Weathersby (HD-62) missed the most votes – 266 out of 773 – for a score of 34% missed votes. By not missing a single vote, the following house members received a perfect attendance score:
- Manly Barton (HD-109)
- Joel Bomgar (HD-58)
- Philip Gunn (HD-56)
- Vince Mangold (HD-53)
- Lee Yancey (HD-74)
We asked the lawmakers who missed at least 10% of the votes if they’d like us to include an explanation. Here is the one response we received:
Angela Burks Hill (SD-40): We were told not to come to work if we had any symptoms of runny nose, sore throat, headache. Etc. We have no way to vote remotely. We had numerous positive cases of covid in the chamber in 2021. I heeded the instructions to stay out of the chamber when I had a headache or runny nose, scratchy throat. Hard to tell if it was allergy, but chose to be cautious a couple of times so as not to expose anyone if I unknowingly had covid.