[StBernard] Who's pushing the buttons?

[Westley Annis]

Unbelievable!  Click on the link on the right "Legislators voting in others'
absence" to see the video.

http://www.wafb.com/Global/story.asp?S=8555965

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Who's pushing the buttons?

Posted: June 25, 2008 06:06 PM CDT 

Updated: June 25, 2008 06:18 PM CDT 
By Caroline Moses

BATON ROUGE, LA (WAFB) - You might still be angry about the pay raise
legislators gave themselves and another circumstance we've come across may
irk you, too. 9NEWS has learned some legislators voted on two, three, or
even four machines at a time during this session because other legislators
were not in the chamber. Some of them were not even in the state. 

We saw Representative Barbara Norton of Shreveport pushing not one, not two,
but three machines on one vote. Then, she directs Representative Rickey
Hardy of Lafayette to catch another one she can't quite reach. This practice
of pushing other legislators' buttons is not new. "They used to do it with
golf clubs and a putter and things like that. Now, they have more
sophisticated clubs to push the buttons," says Barry Erwin with the Council
for a Better Louisiana.

However, if a member is outside the Capitol building, it is against House
rules. "I don't think anyway can defend having a legislator not in the
building, not at work, may be not even in the state or city, having people
vote for their machines," says Erwin. Representative Reed Henderson of
Chalmette called in to WWL-Radio from his car on Friday. He was on his way
back home while legislators were still in session and somehow, his votes
kept coming in, without him there. Henderson is not the only one who does
this. We have confirmed that at least one legislator was not even in the
state when his buttons were pressed and pressed and pressed. 

"There is an expectation that your legislator is going to be there casting
votes for you if you're a citizen. If votes cast and legislators not there,
kind of like defrauding public in a lot of ways," Erwin says. The House
rules state that if a member is not present at the Capitol, they are
supposed to have the clerk turn off their machine, so no one else votes on
it. Yet, it's completely up to the legislator whether or not they choose to
do that. "The point is you should be there. You should be listening to the
debate and you should understand what's going on and you should be pushing
your own buttons," says Erwin.

Maybe if seeing all this pushes your buttons, legislators will stop
stretching their sticks beyond the rules. If a particularly important vote
is about to take place, legislators can call for a quorum vote or a
lock-out. That's when they are specifically told to vote only their machine.
Otherwise, there are no real consequences if a legislator pushes multiple
buttons. Tell us what you think about the multiple voting that goes on.