Who missed the most votes in 2013?

Posted on March 27, 2013 by Adam Brown

With so much going on in such a short session, it may be inevitable that legislators may miss lots of votes

Utah’s Constitution limits the Legislature to convening for only 45 days each year. Once you take out the weekends, they actually meet for 33 days in a typical year. In 2013, the Utah Legislature managed to pass 524 bills in that sparse amount of time. It’s a wonder that they had time to hear all those bills in committee and then debate them on the floor and hold a vote.

Overall, 2013 was a pretty normal year for absenteeism. The brief spike in absenteeism that we saw in 2011 subsided in 2012, and absentee rates overall in 2013 looked about like they usually have in recent years. Take a look:

Average percent of legislators missing a vote, by chamber

Average percent of legislators missing a vote, by chamber

There’s a reason that absentee rates tend to be higher in the Senate: The Senate votes twice on each bill, not once like in the House, and Senators tend to take the first vote (the so-called “second reading”) less seriously. I’ve posted evidence before that Senators skip second reading votes more often than third-reading votes. This tends to push up the absentee rate in the Senate relative to the House.

Which legislators miss the most/least votes: Utah House

First, let’s look at the top 10 and bottom 10 in the Utah House. We’re only looking at floor votes here.

Representative Party Missed votes Notes
Brown, Melvin R. R 26.6% House budget chair
Lockhart, Rebecca D. R 23.9% Speaker of the House
McIff, Kay L. R 16.1%
Hughes, Gregory H. R 15.3% House majority whip
Hutchings, Eric K. R 12.8%
Ray, Paul R 12.5%
Wilson, Brad R. R 12.3% House budget vice chair
King, Brian S. D 12.3%
Fisher, Janice M. D 11.9%
Ivory, Ken R 10.9%
…
Poulson, Marie H. D 1.4%
Eliason, Steve R 1.4%
Redd, Edward H. R 1.2%
Knotwell, John R 0.9%
Moss, Carol Spackman D 0.8%
Stratton, Keven J. R 0.6%
Anderson, Jerry B. R 0.6%
Peterson, Val L. R 0.5%
Westwood, John R. R 0.0%
Christofferson, Kay J. R 0.0%

Check my personal website for absentee rates for all 75 Representatives, including past years.

Which legislators miss the most/least votes: Utah Senate

Now, let’s look at the top 10 and bottom 10 in the Utah Senate:

Senator Party Missed votes Notes
Hillyard, Lyle W. R 34.0% Senate budget chair
Robles, Luz D 23.9%
Urquhart, Stephen H. R 22.8%
Bramble, Curtis S. R 20.9%
Stevenson, Jerry W. R 20.3% Senate budget vice chair
Adams, J. Stuart R 19.1% Majority whip
Madsen, Mark B. R 16.8%
Niederhauser, Wayne L. R 16.1% Senate president
Thatcher, Daniel W. R 13.8%
Hinkins, David P. R 12.3%
…
Osmond, Aaron R 7.6%
Harper, Wayne A. R 5.6%
Dayton, Margaret R 5.5%
Jones, Patricia W. D 5.3% Minority asst whip
Vickers, Evan J. R 4.7%
Mayne, Karen D 4.7% Minority whip
Weiler, Todd R 3.9%
Henderson, Deidre M. R 2.7%
Shiozawa, Brian E. R 2.2%
Reid, Stuart C. R 1.6%

Check my personal website for absentee rates for all 29 Senators, including past years.

Reasons legislators miss votes

Legislators rarely leave the Capitol during the session unless they are ill. From time I’ve spent observing the Legislature, they don’t typically miss votes because they aren’t in the building–rather, they miss votes because there simply isn’t enough time to do everything the job entails. Simply debating and voting on bills can be a full-time job, but legislators have other duties during the session as well.

Crafting legislation. Bills don’t materialize out of nowhere. Legislators propose them. And as they watch their bills go through the process, they often need to sit down with stakeholders and negotiate changes along the way. That takes time. Several of the legislators listed above with high absentee rates sponsored many bills.

Developing the budget. Those tasked with managing the budget process have only 45 days to assemble a multibillion dollar budget. Legislators wouldn’t have a budget to vote on unless each chambers’ budget chairmen spent considerable time working on putting one together. Note that in both chambers, the budget chair and vice chair show up in the top 10 most absent.

Herding cats. Legislators in each chamber select leaders to manage the legislative process. Often, managing that process requires stepping away from it to meet with legislators or with other members of the leadership team. In both chambers, the presiding officer (Speaker/President) and majority whip show up in the top 10 most absent.

With so much going on in such a short session, it may be inevitable that legislators may miss lots of votes–especially if they sponsor many bills, have responsibility for the budget, or hold leadership positions.

Of course, there are some legislators who missed a lot of votes but don’t fit into any of those categories.

Update: A commenter correctly points out that many of those who missed a lot of votes serve on the Rules Committee. That’s a good catch. Rules often has committee meetings during floor time, especially in the final days of the session.

About Adam Brown: Adam Brown is an associate professor of political science at Brigham Young University and a research fellow with the Center for the Study of Elections and Democracy. You can learn more about him at his website.

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Who ran the most bills in the 2013 Legislature?

Posted on March 27, 2013 by Adam Brown

Legislators vary widely in how many bills that sponsor in the Utah Legislature. Before we proceed, let’s clarify what “sponsoring” and “floor sponsoring” mean:

  • Sponsoring. This means the legislator came up with the idea for the bill and had it initially introduced into his or her chamber.
  • Floor sponsoring. After a sponsor gets a bill passed through his or her own chamber, he recruits a floor sponsor to carry it through the other chamber.

For purposes of this post, I’m only looking at sponsorship, not floor sponsorship. Some legislators don’t sponsor any bills; others sponsor an immense number.

Here are some quick tables for the curious. First, we’ll look at which legislators introduced the most bills. Then, we’ll look at which legislators passed the most bills. Then, we’ll look at which legislators were most effective at getting their bills passed(i.e. the percentage of introduced bills that came were passed).

Most bills introduced

The following table lists the top 10 bill sponsors for each chamber in 2013.

Utah House Introduced Utah Senate Introduced
Powell 16 Weiler 24
Eliason 16 Harper 22
Froerer 14 Valentine 20
Dee 14 Bramble 20
Ray 13 Hillyard 19
Menlove 13 Adams 18
Brown, D 13 Urquhart 13
Bird 12 Stevenson, J 13
Nielson 11 Robles 13
Hutchings 11 Knudson 13

Visit my personal website to find bill sponsorship information for all 104 legislators, including for past years.

Most bills passed

Now let’s look at which legislators passed the most bills. By “passed,” I just mean it got through the Legislature; I don’t consider here whether the governor signed it. In the Utah House rankings, there was a seven-way tie for eighth place, including Hall, Ivory, Wilson, Noel, Brown, Bird, and Ray.

Utah House Passed Utah Senate Passed
Dunnigan 15 Weiler 19
Eliason 14 Bramble 18
Dee 13 Harper 17
Menlove 12 Hillyard 15
Froerer 11 Stevenson, J 13
Brown, D 9 Adams 13
Greenwood 8 Van Tassell 11
Several 7 Thatcher 10
Kundson 10
Valentine 10

Visit my personal website to find bill passage information for all 104 legislators, including for past years.

Effectiveness at passing bills

If you compare the two preceding tables, you’ll notice some major differences. In the House, for example, Rep. Kraig Powell appears at the top of the first table but doesn’t appear at all in the second after passing only 5 of his 16 introduced bills.

Just for fun, let’s look at each legislator’s effectiveness at getting bills passed–that is, the percentage of each legislator’s bills that actually passed. It wouldn’t make much sense to calculate these percentages for legislators who introduced only 1 or 2 bills, since a rate of 100% would be a bit misleading in those cases. I’ll calculate them only for legislators who introduced at least 5 bills. That leaves us with 40 (of 75) Representatives and 24 (of 29) Senators.

The table below gives the top 10 and bottom 10 in the House. Where there are ties–and there is a nine-way tie in the top 10–I sort them by number of bills passed. Are legislators are Republicans unless noted.

Representative Passage rate Bills passed
Dunnigan 100% 15 of 15
Wilson 100% 7 of 7
Ivory 100% 7 of 7
Hall 100% 7 of 7
Wilcox 100% 6 of 6
Redd 100% 5 of 5
Last 100% 5 of 5
Ipson 100% 5 of 5
Barlow 100% 5 of 5
Dee 93% 13 of 14
…
Ray 54% 7 of 13
Christensen 50% 4 of 8
Hutchings 46% 5 of 11
McCay 38% 3 of 8
Briscoe (D) 33% 2 of 6
Chavez-Houck (D) 33% 2 of 6
Powell 31% 5 of 16
Greene 29% 2 of 7
Nielson 27% 3 of 11
King (D) 0% 0 of 7

Since the Senate has fewer members, I’ll give only the top 5 and bottom 5:

Senator Passage rate Bills passed
Stevenson, J 100% 13 of 13
Henderson 100% 6 of 6
Van Tassell 92% 11 of 12
Bramble 90% 18 of 20
Hinkins 90% 9 of 10
…
Reid 50% 4 of 8
Valentine 50% 10 of 20
Robles (D) 39% 5 of 13
Urquhart 39% 5 of 13
Okerlund 33% 4 of 12

Make of it what you will.

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Who voted “nay” most often in the 2013 Utah Legislature?

Posted on March 27, 2013 by Adam Brown

Perhaps it takes a few terms of service to pick up the “consensus culture.”

Although most votes in the Utah Legislature pass with overwhelming 90+% majorities, there are some legislators who really like to vote “nay.”

There aren’t enough of them that many votes actually fail, of course. The figure below shows the percentage of floor votes that don’t pass in each chamber. Consistent with previous years, it was less than 5% in both chambers for the 2013 session. This despite Speaker Becky Lockhart’s plea early in the 2013 session urging legislators to pass fewer bills: “We’ll add another 200 pages of [Utah] code to the 200 pages we added last year. That’s on top of the thousands and thousands of pages already on the books. Do we really want to keep doing that? Really? Really?”

Percentage of floor votes that DON'T pass, by year

Percentage of floor votes that DON’T pass, by year

Of course, a few legislators try their darnedest to change that. Early in the session, Rep. Dan McCay took to Twitter to lament that he was the only vote “against dumb ideas.” (You should follow this link to see the great image he attached to his tweet.) Whether he was voting against dumb ideas or not is in the eye of the beholder, but he was right about one thing: He was often the only vote “against” bills. Rep. McCay was the most enthusiastic “nay” voter of 2012. The table below lists legislators ranked in the top 10 and bottom 10 for “nay” voting in 2013. Take a look:

Rank Legislator Party Chamber Nay votes
1 McCay, Daniel R House 15.7%
2 Roberts, Marc K. R House 14.9%
3 Greene, Brian M. R House 12.5%
4 Romero, Angela D House 11.2%
4 Anderson, Johnny R House 11.2%
6 Wilcox, Ryan D. R House 11.1%
6 Briscoe, Joel K. D House 11.1%
8 Bird, Jim R House 10.6%
9 Nielson, Jim R House 10.5%
10 Knotwell, John R House 10.3%
10 Dayton, Margaret R Senate 10.3%
…
95 Valentine, John L. R Senate 2.2%
96 Shiozawa, Brian E. R Senate 2.1%
96 Knudson, Peter C. R Senate 2.1%
98 Urquhart, Stephen H. R Senate 1.8%
98 Adams, J. Stuart R Senate 1.8%
100 Bramble, Curtis S. R Senate 1.7%
101 Stevenson, Jerry W. R Senate 1.6%
102 Osmond, Aaron R Senate 1.3%
103 Okerlund, Ralph R Senate 1.0%
103 Niederhauser, Wayne L. R Senate 1.0%

There are a few striking observations about these rankings.

  • There is only one Senator in the top 10–actually, she’s tied for #10–and no Representatives in the bottom 10. I suspect this is heavily driven by the presence of a Second Reading Calendar in the Senate, where votes routinely pass by massive margins.
  • Although we might expect most “nay” votes to come from the minority party, they don’t. Rather, the differences in “nay” voting seem to be picking up the major factional split within the Republican party.
  • There are a LOT of freshmen in the top 10, but a lot of old-timers and leaders in the bottom 10. Perhaps it takes a few terms of service to pick up the “consensus culture.”
  • Leaders don’t vote “nay” much. Senate President Wayne Niederhauser cast fewer “nay” votes of anybody. And Speaker Becky Lockhart ranked #82 out of 104 legislators–that’s #72 of 75 in the House–with only 3.6% “nay” votes.

Additional data

On my personal site, you can get “nay” voting rates for all 104 legislators. (You can also get data for years back through 2007.)

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How quickly were bills passed in 2013?

Posted on March 27, 2013 by Adam Brown

Something changed around 2009 or 2010 that led legislators to introduce their bills later and, as a result, process them more quickly.

In 2013, the Utah Legislature passed more bills than it’s passed since I started keeping track (in 2007). A total of 748 bills were introduced, of which 581 made it to a floor vote, of which 524 were passed out of the Legislature. (You can find data for previous years here.)

The Utah Constitution limits the Legislature to a 45-day session. Weekends are included in the count, even though the Legislature doesn’t meet on weekends. In practice, the Legislature handles all its business in 33 working days.

Think about that: 33 days to handle 581 bills. That means the Legislature has very little time to devote to each bill. It also means constituents have very little time to weigh in on bills between their introduction and final passage.

When were bills introduced in 2013?

In 2013, only 39% of bills were introduced within the first week of the seven-week session. That’s a slight increase from 2011’s low (35%), but still lower than was common prior to 2009 (53% in 2007, 55% in 2008).

The flip side is that more bills are introduced in the final two weeks of the session, what Rep. Powell has termed the “scary session.” In 2013, 23% of bills were not introduced until the final two weeks. That’s marginally lower than 2011’s high (24%), but higher than was common prior to 2009 (4% in 2007, 4% in 2008).

How quickly were bills passed?

If bills are introduced later in the session, there will naturally be less time between introduction and final passage. In 2013, a typical bill aged 14 days between introduction and its first floor vote, and 24 days between introduction and final passage. These numbers were similar to those seen in 2011 and 2012, but smaller than was typical for 2007 and 2008.

Punchlines

I wrote last year that bills were being introduced later and passed faster in 2011-2012 than in previous years. What we saw in 2013 was that those trends did not deepen, but they didn’t reverse either. Something changed around 2009 or 2010 that led legislators to introduce their bills later and, as a result, process them more quickly. Whatever it was that changed was apparently a one-time shock, since the change appears to have leveled off.

I have some ideas about what happened in 2009-2010 that caused this one-time shock, but since I don’t have data available to back them up, I won’t provide elaborate here.

Additional data

On my personal website, you can see more detailed information about when bills were introduced each year and how quickly were passed.

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The closest votes in the 2013 Legislature

Posted on March 27, 2013 by Adam Brown

Most votes in the Utah Legislature pass with an overwhelming bipartisan majority.

It has long been tradition that floor votes in the Utah Legislature pass with overwhelming majorities taking the same side. Democrats and Republicans alike tend to get behind the same bills. That being said, there were a few very close votes in the 2013 Legislature.

Consensus voting

Let’s start by looking at the general trend: Consensus voting. Divisive bills tend to be heavily watered down before the reach the floor. By the time a bill actually comes to a floor vote, lawmakers often have little reason to oppose it.

Brian Greene’s HB 114 is a great example. As introduced, it would have made it a crime for federal law enforcement officers to enforce federal firearms laws within Utah. Paradoxically, it would also have required the Attorney General to provide defense counsel for any federal law enforcement officers so charged, even though the AG’s office would also be supervising the prosecution. By the time it reached the House floor, those provisions had been replaced with milder language that merely “affirmed” the state’s dominance in regulated firearms. As a result, it passed through the House 49-17-9. Although that’s a narrower vote margin than is typical in the House, it’s hard to imagine the bill receiving nearly as many votes in its original form.

Most bills start out less provocative than HB 114. By the time they’ve been amended in committee, they reach the floor looking relatively mild. As such, most votes in the Utah Legislature pass with an overwhelming bipartisan majority.

Take a look at the chart below. It shows the average percentage of legislators who vote on the winning side, by chamber. From 2007 to 2013, the House has typically seen an average between 92 and 94%; the Senate has seen averages between 95 and 96%.

Average percentage of legislators who vote on the winning side, by chamber

Average percentage of legislators who vote on the winning side, by chamber

Democrats controlled 17% of the Senate and 19% of the House in 2013. In most of the preceding years, they controlled 20-something percent of the seats. If most Democrats weren’t joining the majority, then the high averages reported in the chart above wouldn’t be possible. A “party-line vote” occurs when the majority of Democrats votes against the majority of Republicans. Party-line votes are rare in the Utah Legislature, as you can see in the following chart. It depicts the percentage of votes that were party-line votes in each chamber, year-by-year. In 2013, only 11.7% of House votes were decided along party lines (roughly average since 2007), while only 5.5% of Senate votes were decided along party lines (tying 2007 for the lowest rate seen since 2007).

Frequency of party-line votes, by chamber

Frequency of party-line votes, by chamber

Which votes were the closest?

Now that we’ve established that consensus voting is the norm, let’s look at the closest votes from 2013. First we’ll look at the House, then at the Senate. In the tables, you can click on bill names to see the bill’s content, and you can click on the vote margin (ayes-nays-absent) to see which legislators voted each way.

The 20 closest votes in the 2013 Utah House

Bill Vote type Ayes-Nays-Absent Vote margin
SB0122S01 House/ failed 37-37-1 0
HB0278S01 House/ failed 37-35-3 2
SB0271S03 House/ passed 3rd reading 38-36-1 2
HB0063 House/ failed 35-38-2 3
HB0381 House/ passed 3rd reading 38-35-2 3
SB0082S01 House/ passed 3rd reading 38-35-2 3
SB0078 House/ passed 3rd reading 38-34-3 4
SB0267 House/ failed 35-39-1 4
HB0038S02 House/ failed 33-38-4 5
HB0278S01 House/ passed 3rd reading 39-34-2 5
HB0307 House/ failed 34-39-2 5
SB0023S01 House/ failed 33-38-4 5
HB0271S02 House/ failed 33-39-3 6
HB0038S02 House/ failed 32-39-4 7
HB0217S02 House/ floor amendment 40-33-2 7
HB0088S02 House/ passed 3rd reading 40-32-3 8
HB0246 House/ concurs with Senate amendment 39-31-5 8
HB0274 House/ passed 3rd reading 41-33-1 8
HB0246 House/ passed 3rd reading 41-32-2 9
HB0307 House/ failed 29-38-8 9

The 20 closest votes in the 2013 Utah Senate

Bill Vote type Ayes-Nays-Absent Vote margin
SB0114 Senate/ passed 2nd reading 15-14-0 1
HB0103 Senate/ failed 11-13-5 2
SB0085 Senate/ failed 13-15-1 2
SB0267 Senate/ passed 2nd & 3rd readings/ suspension 15-13-1 2
HB0013 Senate/ passed 3rd reading 16-13-0 3
HB0360 Senate/ passed 2nd & 3rd readings/ suspension 15-12-2 3
SB0112S03 Senate/ failed 14-11-4 3
SB0118 Senate/ failed 14-11-4 3
SB0226 Senate/ passed 3rd reading 15-12-2 3
SB0081 Senate/ passed 2nd & 3rd readings/ suspension 16-12-1 4
SB0110S01 Senate/ failed 12-16-1 4
HB0103 Senate/ passed 2nd & 3rd readings/ suspension 17-12-0 5
SB0187S02 Senate/ passed 3rd reading 16-11-2 5
HB0276 Senate/ passed 3rd reading 16-10-3 6
SB0052S01 Senate/ passed 2nd reading 17-11-1 6
SB0271S03 Senate/ passed 2nd & 3rd readings/ suspension 16-10-3 6
HB0096S02 Senate/ passed 2nd & 3rd readings/ suspension 18-11-0 7
HB0279 Senate/ failed 10-17-2 7
SB0071S01 Senate/ failed 11-18-0 7
SJR003S01 Senate/ passed 2nd reading 17-10-2 7

Additional data

On my personal website, you can find the closest votes from past years, or you can find additional statistics about floor voting patterns (such as consensus voting and party-line voting).

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Were Democrats able to pass their bills this year?

Posted on March 26, 2013 by Adam Brown

The numbers tell a different story: Democratic bills received less favorable treatment than last year.

Before the 2013 Utah Legislative session started up, I wrote a post noting that Democrats have seen remarkable success in recent years at passing their bills, despite their small numbers. That was then. Things changed in the 2013 session.

Utah’s Democratic lawmakers have offered sanguine assessments of the 2013 session. Utah House Democratic leader Jennifer Seelig was quoted in today’s news saying “We were given equal access under our rules of engagement.” Her Utah Senate counterpart, Gene Davis, concurred: “We were treated fairly.” A week ago, Utah Democratic Party chair and freshman Utah Senator Jim Dabakis put it memorably: “The lion really doesn’t need to negotiate with the lamb but the lion has been more than fair.”

The numbers tell a different story: Democratic bills received less favorable treatment than last year. Let’s take a look.

Partisan batting averages

I measure each party’s success by looking at their overall “batting averages.” The Democrats’ batting average is simply the percentage of bills introduced by Democratic legislators that passed.1

In 2013, only 43% of Democratic bills passed, as compared to 73% of Republican bills. That’s a gap of 30 percentage points. Last year, the gap was only 9 percentage points. In many ways, the gap is more interesting than the raw batting averages, since it gives a measure of whether Democrats are treated differently than Republicans.

Take a look at the figure below. The red and blue lines show each party’s batting average for each General Session since 2007, and the green line shows the gap. In 2013, the gap jumped to its highest level since 2009, when it was at 40 percentage points.

The percentage of Republican- and Democratic-sponsored bills that passed

The percentage of Republican- and Democratic-sponsored bills that passed

Now, the preceding figure shows how many of each party’s bills actually passed. But we can get more insight by looking at how many bills came to a floor vote. If a bill doesn’t come to a vote, it suggests that the majority party is flexing some muscle to keep Democratic bills off the floor, either by holding them in Rules, declining to prioritize them in the final days of the session, sending them to unfriendly committees, and so on. (An important caveat: It’s also a possibility that Democrats simply sponsored far more liberal legislation than last year, causing their proposals to die in committee–more on that below.)

This next figure shifts from looking at how many bills passed to how many came to at least one floor vote. If you look at the green line, you’ll see a substantial rise in 2013. In 2012, there was only a 5 point gap; Democratic bills were as likely to get a vote as Republican bills. In 2013, that gap rose dramatically to 24 points.

Percentage of Republican- and Democratic-sponsored bills that came to at least one floor vote

Percentage of Republican- and Democratic-sponsored bills that came to at least one floor vote

Which chamber drove this change?

Now let’s look at the House and the Senate separately to see whether one experienced a greater shift than the other. Let’s stick with looking at the percentage of bills that came to at least one floor vote. First the House:

Utah House only

Utah House only

And now the Senate:

Utah Senate only

Utah Senate only

The cross-chamber difference almost leaps off the page. The Senate saw very little change–Democrats have received steady treatment for the past 4 sessions, since 2010. In the House, there was an abrupt shift. During her first 2 years as Speaker, 2011 and 2012, Becky Lockhart ushered in a period of surprising fairness for Democrats. In 2012, the partisan gap in the House was a mere 2 percentage points. For whatever reason, however, things reversed course in 2013. The gap rose to 30 percentage points in the House, the largest gap seen in either chamber since 2009.

What caused the changed in 2013?

There are two main reasons that a minority party’s success with passing bills (or even getting them to the floor) might fluctuate from year to year.

  • First, if the Democrats introduce more moderate bills, they will find more success than if they run more liberal bills. This is, after all, a Republican-majority chamber, and nobody expects Democrats to be able to pass whatever they want. Whether Democrats run moderate or liberal bills is up to them.
  • Second, the majority party leadership in each chamber has various ways of impeding a bill’s progress before it ever comes to a floor vote, and if they choose to use those tools more heavily against minority party bills in one particular year, then the batting averages will shift accordingly.

Those are the two major movers and shakers. There are other possibilities, too. Among them:

  • Democrats lost seats in both the House and the Senate following the 2012 elections, leaving them with only 17-19% of the seats in each chamber. As a result, the 2012 Legislature was the most Republican body since the 1960s, and the second-most Republican in 80 years. The simple loss in voting power may have played a role in changing the batting averages. This explanation isn’t satisfying, though, since most Legislative votes pass with overwhelming support from both parties, not with party-line support.
  • The Utah House experienced major turnover this year, welcoming 20 freshmen, the most in 20 years. Research has found that when states introduce term limits, the resulting increase in turnover tends to diminish crossparty collegiality, as legislators have less time to form friendships across the aisle.2 Perhaps something similar happened this year. With so many freshmen Republicans, maybe there was just less crossparty collegiality.

There is no definitive way to assess which of these possible mechanisms drove this year’s change. One thing we can see, though, is that Democratic bills were far less likely to receive a floor vote this year than last year.

Additional data

The charts here are lifted from my other website. You can find more detailed statistics on party batting averages there, as well as a variety of other statistics about the recent legislative session.

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Do Utah Legislators work enough to justify their salary?

Posted on March 7, 2013 by Adam Brown

It’s not much of a stretch to claim that Utah Legislators earn poverty wages.

Since passage of HJR006 early in 2013, Utah Legislators will earn $16,500 per year. It can be difficult to know how many hours legislators put in to earn that money. From calculations I’ll present below, it appears that Utah legislators work just over 1,000 hours per year, producing an effective wage of $16.42/hour. At that wage, a full-time employee with two weeks vacation would earn $29,240 per year.

How much is $29,240? The Census bureau estimates that Utah’s median household income is twice as high: $57,783. For a family of four, $29,240 is only slightly above the poverty line ($23,050). It’s not much of a stretch to claim that Utah Legislators earn poverty wages.

A survey of Utah Legislators

During this year’s General Session, I had the opportunity to run a survey of Utah’s Legislators. I asked a variety of questions, some of which will be addressed in subsequent posts. I began by asking legislators to estimate how many hours they work during the General Session, in the month before the session (January), and during the rest of the year. You can read about the survey methodology, margin of error, and question wording in 2013 Legislator Survey topline report.

The median legislator reports working 62.5 hours per week during the General Session, 20 hours per week in the preceding month, and 12.5 hours per week for the rest of the year. If we assume legislators take two weeks totally away from politics, that leads to an estimate of 1,005 hours per year. (For context, consider that a full-time employee with two weeks vacation puts in 2,000 hours each year.)

When House Minority Leader David Litvack resigned from the Legislature in 2012, he cited the immense stress that his service imposed on his family life. These numbers put his comments into perspective.

What do legislators do during the General Session?

The Utah Constitution limits the Utah Legislature to a 45-day General Session held each winter.

During the General Session, the median legislator reports spending 30 hours per week either in committee meetings or in floor time, with another 9 hours spent in caucus meetings with other legislators.

This is one part of the survey that we can validate by looking at the 2013 General Session’s official legislative schedules. Looking through the House schedules, I found an average of 41 hours per week of scheduled committee, floor, and caucus meetings.1 The median legislator’s estimate of 39 hours per week on these activities slightly underestimates that 41 hour average that appears in the official schedule. Still, it is very close.

Of course, Legislators do more than sit in committee meetings and floor debates voting on bills. They also spend time drafting and negotiating the bills they plan to sponsor. Like most states, the Utah Legislature routinely passes far more bills than Congress. In a typical year, the Utah Legislature considers 700-800 bills and passes 400-500 of them. From 2007 through 2012, the average legislator sponsored 6.8 bills, with some sponsoring close to 30 bills. In my survey, the median legislator reported spending 10 hours per week (during Session) “researching and crafting legislation,” an estimate that seems plausible in light of the number of bills being written each year.

Beyond showing up to vote, legislators also have obligations to their constituents. Legislators spend time holding town hall meetings, responding to constituent emails and phone calls, and meeting with activists. The median legislator reports spending 8 hours per week (during Session) meeting with constituents and another 8 hours meeting with activists, lobbyists, and other stakeholders.

All told, the median legislator reports working 62.5 hours per week during the General Session. After seven weeks, that comes out to a total of 438 hours.

What do legislators do outside of session?

Legislative service is a year-round obligation that does not end with the annual General Session comes to a close each March. The period between sessions is known as the “interim.” Legislators have many duties during the interim: Service on task forces, attending monthly interim committee meetings, possible special sessions, and so on. Those in the Senate have the additional duty of attention confirmation sessions whenever the governor makes an appointment.

In the survey, I asked questions about how legislators spend their time during the interim. There was much greater variability here, making it difficult to pin down a pattern. The median legislator reports spending the most time (4 hours per week) during the interim interacting with constituents, either in person or by email. Legislators report spending a similar amount of time in various required meetings (such as interim committee meetings, special sessions, confirmation sessions, and so on).

Is Utah typical?

States vary widely in how many hours they expect their legislators to work and how much they pay them. In California, legislators are in session year-round and earn over $100,000 for their efforts. In Utah, the official session lasts only 45 calendar days (plus any special sessions), and legislators earn under $20,000. Recent data suggest that Utah’s legislature ranks in the bottom 5 in both salary and in session length.2

Survey details

Details about the survey’s methodology, margin of error, and question wording are in this 2013 Legislator Survey topline report.

Updated for clarity about what happens during the interim at on March 7, 2013.

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What do Utahns Think of Gun Control?

Posted on March 4, 2013 by Kelly Patterson

This analysis was performed by Ian Hansen, a student research fellow at BYU’s Center for the Study of Elections and Democracy (like us on Facebook), in collaboration with CSED faculty.  The writing is mostly his. Inquiries about this research should come to Quin Monson, Chris Karpowitz, or Kelly Patterson.

In the wake of the Newtown tragedy, the public discourse regarding gun violence has intensified, both on the national and state levels.  Gun policy has attracted the attention of the Utah State Legislature, including the Second Amendment Preservation Act.

With the debate over gun control as a backdrop, we included questions regarding gun control on the January 2013  Key Research Survey. The results indicate that a majority of Utah voters oppose banning semi-automatic weapons and high-capacity magazines. In keeping with patterns elsewhere in the country, differences exist along party lines.

Figure 1 Figure 2

Figure 3

Although there seems to be little hope for agreement on most aspects of the gun debate, a national CBS/New York Times poll showed that 92% of Americans support a federal law requiring universal background checks for all potential gun buyers.  Similar to national data, the Utah data show overwhelming support for universal background checks:

Figure 4  Figure 5

Figure 6While Utahns’ support for universal background checks is about 10 points lower than the national figure, the proposal is clearly still very popular. Figures 5 and 6 indicate that support for universal background checks remains very strong among both Republicans and those living in gun owner households.

The Key Research survey also included questions regarding gun policy in relation to schools:

Figure 7 Figure 8

Figure 9

Finally, we conducted a factor analysis on these six gun policy proposals. A factor analysis takes a number of observed variables (in this case answers to several questions about gun control) and seeks to find out if these multiple variables can be reduced to fewer (unobserved) factors. Factor analysis provides a means to see what, if anything, some or all of the variables might share in common.   Factor analysis can be used for other issues such as government spending.

A factor analysis of the six items on gun control (see table below) shows that four of the six gun control variables relate to one factor (limits on gun control) and the other two items relate to a second factor. What is interesting is that the two items that seem to relate to a second factor involve children and schools.  These are the items on providing the teachers with concealed weapons training and the school with an armed officer.   The results of the factor analysis seem to indicate that respondents think differently about guns when children and/or schools are involved.

Figure 10

The opinion data indicate that Utahns oppose efforts to restrict access to the ownership and use of firearms.  However, those opinions do not extend as easily or naturally when taking schools and children into consideration.

Survey Methodology

Click here to download a topline report that includes the full survey questionnaire, frequencies for each question, and a detailed methodological report (including details about the sampling as well as response rates and cooperation rates).

About Kelly Patterson: Kelly Patterson is a professor of political science at Brigham Young University and a senior scholar at the Center for the Study of Elections and Democracy.

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How do Utah Voters Perceive the Attorney General’s Alleged Scandal?

Posted on January 30, 2013 by Kelly Patterson

Perhaps most importantly, very few Republicans (14%) or Democrats (11%) are willing to say that Swallow did nothing unethical.  While some voters haven’t quite made up their minds yet, most voters (whether Republican or Democrat) don’t like what they’re hearing so far.

This analysis was performed by Zach Smith, a student research fellow at BYU’s Center for the Study of Elections and Democracy (like us on Facebook), in collaboration with CSED faculty.  The writing is mostly his. Inquiries about this research should come to Quin Monson, Chris Karpowitz, or Kelly Patterson.

In a democratic society, political officials normally care what the public thinks about them.  This becomes even more important when a scandal envelops them.  However, scandals can have different effects depending on the type of scandal, how the scandal gets covered, and on the dispositions the public brings to the scandal.

So far in this affair, it appears that the newly-elected Attorney General is without any defenders of his own. And consistent with other trends in public opinion and scandals, there is a partisan dimension.  These conclusions come from data collected by Key Research in cooperation with BYU’s Center for the Study of Elections and Democracy (CSED) during January 2013. The sample for the survey was taken from the file of registered voters and has 500 respondents.

Because attitudes for those who have some information about a potential scandal are better able to offer an opinion about the accusations than those who are unaware, respondents were first asked, “Have you heard, read or seen anything recently about accusations involving Attorney General John Swallow?”  Sixty-six percent of the voters in the survey responded affirmatively.  This relatively high proportion should not be too surprising because the sample is of registered voters with a higher probability of voting and voters typically pay more attention to politics.  As likely voters, they are also the kind of people to which politicians are typically more likely to pay attention.

Only those who reported having heard something about the accusations were then asked if they felt the Attorney General had done something illegal, unethical, or neither.  While only 17% said that he did something illegal, 41% said he did something unethical, but not illegal.  Only 14% of this group who knew something about the scandal said he did not do anything unethical.  The remaining 28% said they were unsure about the ethics or legality of the situation.

Swallow Figure 1

A closer look shows that party identification readily changes how voters perceive the accusations. Democrats readily accuse him, while Republicans are more hesitant. About 29% of Democrats say Swallow did something illegal while only 13% of Republicans agree. However, both Democrats (47%) and Republicans (40%) agree that he did something unethical. Even more interesting is that a third of Republicans remain unsure about the accusations.  Perhaps most importantly, very few Republicans (14%) or Democrats (11%) are willing to say that Swallow did nothing unethical.  While some voters haven’t quite made up their minds yet, most voters (whether Republican or Democrat) don’t like what they’re hearing so far.

Swallow Figure 2

The 39% of all respondents who said that he acted either illegally or unethically (58% of the 66%) were then asked if they felt the Attorney General should remain in office or resign. Nearly a majority (49%) of these respondents felt he should resign, with 34% saying he should remain and 18% being unsure.  Again, this 49% only represents respondents who have both heard something about the accusations and who also believe he did something illegal or unethical.  It only makes up less than 20% of the total sample.  However, the series of questions allows us to see how the remaining voters are likely to respond to the accusations as they continue to be reported in the coming days and weeks.  As voters hear about the accusations a clear majority believe Swallow at least did something unethical (and relatively few defend him), and of those who see wrongdoing, a large plurality believe Swallow should resign.

Swallow Figure 3

When broken down by party identification, Democrats again come out swinging while Republicans seem to hold back. Of Democrats, 69% say he should resign, while only 41% of Republicans agree.  Of Republicans, 40% feel he should remain in office, while only 21% of Democrats agree. And once again, a larger proportion of Republicans (19%) are unsure what to do with him, while fewer Democrats (10%) feel the same.

Swallow Figure 4

This scandal follows a well-worn pattern documented by political scientists. First, it is more important to look at the opinions of individuals who claim to have heard at least something about the scandal.  Second, partisan dispositions play an important role in helping sort out what people think about the scandal.  And finally, these differences between the partisans translate into different conclusions about what the official should do.  Among those who perceive at least unethical behavior, a clear plurality think he should resign, but Democrats are much more likely to say so.

Survey Methodology

Click here to download a topline report that includes the full survey questionnaire, frequencies for each question, and a detailed methodological report (including details about the sampling as well as response rates and cooperation rates).

Question Wording for items in this blog post:

Q15. Have you heard, read or seen anything recently about accusations involving Attorney General John Swallow?
(66%) 1 Yes
(34%) 2 No [if no, skip to Q16]

[if  Q15=YES ask…]
Q15A. As you may know, the media have reported accusations that Attorney General John Swallow might have received money in an attempt to help somebody influence Senator Harry Reid. Based on what you have heard or read, which of the following statements best describes your view of what John Swallow might have done.
[N=324]
(17%) 1 John Swallow did something illegal.
(41%) 2 John Swallow did nothing illegal, but did something unethical.
(14%) 3 John Swallow did nothing unethical.
(28%) 4 DON’T KNOW (DO NOT READ)

[if Q15A= 1 or 2 ask…]
Q15B. Do you think that Attorney General John Swallow should remain in office or resign?
[N=188]
(34%) 1 Remain in office
(49%) 2 Resign
(18%) 3 DON’T KNOW (DO NOT READ)

 

 

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Legislative Democrats have had more of their bills considered in recent years

Posted on January 23, 2013 by Adam Brown

Democrats were more successful at getting their bills considered in 2012 than in previous years.

Republicans have held a veto-proof supermajority in the Utah Legislature for years. The 2012 elections gave them even more control, bringing us the second most Republican Legislature in 80 years.

Some may be wondering whether Legislative Republicans even pay passing attention to ideas pushed by their Democratic colleagues. The Utah Legislature considers hundreds of bills each year. It employs several mechanisms–notably each chamber’s Rules Committee–to weed out bills without even giving them a single floor vote. These mechanisms assist in managing the flood of bills, but there is an obvious potential to use these powers to keep bills that the majority party doesn’t like from ever coming to the floor.

So here’s the question I want to answer: Are Democrats able to get their bills to a floor vote, or do procedural hurdles prevent minority party bills from coming to a vote? (I’m asking whether the bills come to at least one floor vote, not whether the bills pass. Passage data are available here if you’re curious.)

It turns out the answer varies widely from year to year. In the 2012 legislative session, Democrats managed to bring 72% of their bills to a vote. That’s only 5 points shy of the 77% of Republican bills that came to a vote. That 5-point gap is a stark change from how things worked just a few years earlier. In 2009, Democrats brought only 50% of their bills to a vote, compared to 86% for Republicans–a 36-point gap. The figure below sums it up.

The percentage of Republican- and Democratic- sponsored bills that had at least one floor vote

The percentage of Republican- and Democratic- sponsored bills that had at least one floor vote

I find the green line most interesting. It shows the difference between the two parties’ batting averages. You can see that the difference peaked at 36 percentage points in 2009, and fell steadily until it was at almost 0 in 2012.

What has changed since 2009?

There are two main factors that could cause minority-party Democrats to have more success with bringing their bills to a vote.

  • First, the ideological flavor of the bills. If the minority brings forward moderate bills, they will find it easier to attract crossparty support, which will make it easier to get through the committee process and make it to the floor. Whether the minority pursues moderate or ideological bills is their decision.
  • Second, the philosophy of chamber leadership, particularly the presiding officer (Speaker or Senate President) and Rules Committee chair. Some have a philosophy of letting bills go through the process on their own, under the belief that the process itself will take care of unpopular bills.1 Other leaders have a more active approach, using procedural mechanisms to prevent unpopular bills from ever coming to a vote.

Comparing the House to the Senate

One way to sort out these two possibilities is to compare the chambers. If Democrats are making a strategic decision to pursue moderate instead of liberal bills, we’d probably see their batting average rise in both chambers. But if leaders within each chamber are changing their approach, then we might see the batting average move separately within each chamber. After all, the House changed speakers in 2009 (to David Clark) and again in 2011 (to Becky Lockhart). The Senate made a change in 2009 (to Michael Waddoups) and made no changes until a few weeks ago. So let’s look at each chamber separately.

Partisan batting averages in the Utah House

Partisan batting averages in the Utah House

That’s the House. There was a 40 point gap in 2009; it fell to a 2 point gap in 2012. (More detailed statistics are here.) Now for the Senate, which had a 31 point gap in 2009 fall to a 11 point gap in 2012.

Partisan batting averages in the Utah Senate

Partisan batting averages in the Utah Senate

Both chambers experienced a spike in 2009, which suggests that legislative Democrats may have pursued more liberal policies that year that simply had less chance of passage. (Here are some possible examples.)

However, things leveled off in the Senate after 2010, while the House continued to experience a steep decline. This suggests that the change in leadership (from David Clark to Becky Lockhart) may have had tangible effects in the House. Indeed, initial reporting after the change in Speakership referenced dissatisfaction with Clark’s “heavy hand.”

Wrapping up

It’s hard to know exactly why Democrats were more successful at getting their bills considered in 2012 than in previous years. Maybe they chose to pursue more moderate bills. Maybe they received gentler treatment from leadership.

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