Dozens of members of the U.S. House of Representatives have missed two-thirds of this session’s committee meetings, where much of the nuts-and-bolts work of Congress gets done, a Washington Examiner analysis found.
Rep. Niki Tsongas, D-Mass., is a prime example. Despite holding a river cleanup day in her district last month, and saying “our rivers have served us well for centuries … sustaining our health by providing clean drinking water, creating tremendous recreational opportunities and bringing natural beauty to our daily life,” the lawmaker did not attend congressional panel meetings to do the work she trumpets as necessary.
Tsongas is a member of the House Committee on Natural Resources and its subcommittees on public lands and environmental regulation and energy and mineral resources. Yet she has attended only one of 24 meetings of those panels this session. Among the meetings she missed were those in which legislation was considered to expand the use of rivers for recreation and to conserve fisheries.
A Tsongas spokesman disagreed with the Examiner’s characterization but did not provide additional data.
Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., claims on her website that serving on the House Energy and Commerce Committee enables her “to be an effective and powerful advocate for eastern Washington families because the committee covers a wide variety of issues, including broadband, healthcare and energy.”
But McMorris Rodgers missed 93 percent of the panel hearings this session for which attendance records are available.
Her spokesman said her duties as chairman of the House Republican Conference include leadership meetings that conflicted with most energy and commerce hearings, and that family situations kept her away from others.
But another member of the House GOP leadership, Rep. James Lankford, R-Okla., attended 79 percent of his hearings and said the work informed his role as chairman of the House Republican Policy Committee.
“If you come [to Congress] for a policy focus, you’ve got to work in the policy areas,” Lankford said. “At any given time, there a lot of different issues you have to deal with, but when you’re a member of a committee, that work is extremely important.”
Lankford said he often talks with constituents in the hallway outside the committee meetings.
The Examiner analyzed 1,000 committee and subcommittee hearing minutes published by the Government Printing Office for the present Congress.
The GPO does not publish minutes of all hearings, and half of those that were published didn’t list attendees, so the data aren’t comprehensive.
A member of Congress only needs to appear for a short time to be marked present, so the GPO numbers may significantly overstate actual engagement at the proceedings.
Another prominent Republican, former GOP presidential aspirant Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota, missed 69 percent of her Committee on Financial Services hearings, according to the minutes.
Committee meetings Bachmann missed focused on issues such as monetary policy, reducing waste and fraud in federal housing programs, and testimony by the Treasury secretary.
Bachmann also serves on the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, for which minutes were not available. Dan Kotman, a spokesman for Bachmann, said she always attends meetings of that panel and “it is a significant time commitment for her.”
Rep. Jim Cooper, D-Tenn., missed 91 percent of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform hearings, being marked present at only seven of 78 hearings reviewed by the Examiner.
Cooper attended no hearings of its Subcommittee on Energy Policy, Health Care & Entitlements, according to data gleaned from GPO publications.
Cooper also serves on the House Armed Services Committee and is the top Democrat on one of its subcommittees, but attendance data wasn’t available for that panel.
Spokesman Chris Carroll said Cooper is the “ranking minority member of the subcommittee charged with staving off nuclear attacks. Schedules tend to overlap. He’ll choose protecting our troops, keeping America safe and meeting with constituents over political theater every time.”
Other frequently missing members are Alaska’s sole voice in the House, 81-year-old Republican Don Young, and Chicago-area Democrat Danny Davis. Both missed 73 percent of their committee gatherings.
Among members with the best attendance record is Rep. John Conyers Jr., D-Mich., who missed only one of 39 House Judiciary Committee hearings this session.
The 85-year-old Conyers is ranking minority member of the committee. He was first elected to the House in 1965 and is the chamber’s second-longest serving member.
Only five other House members had rates as good as or better than Conyers: Democrat Al Green of Texas and Republicans Andy Barr of Kentucky, Bill Huizenga of Michigan, Scott Garrett of New Jersey and Robert Pittenger of North Carolina.
Members with high numbers of absences are “not sitting back at their office watching ‘South Park,’ they’re making a choice that something else is more important,” said Bradford Fitch, president of the Congressional Management Foundation, which helps members manage their offices.
“For new members of Congress, one of their responsibilities is to learn their new jobs, and one of the ways to do it is to go to these hearings. When they first become members of Congress, they have few responsibilities, and this is one of them,” Fitch said.
