BASIS (the legislative website) has a lot of information. One thing I've looked for and failed to find is how legislators voted. Wouldn't it be nice to be able to pull up a bill and see how they voted? Or to pull up a specific legislator and see how he or she voted on a list of different bills? But I couldn't find that sort of information.
So I asked a BASIS technician and he confirmed what I'm looking for just isn't there. You need to go to the House and Senate Journals which are the minutes of each day's floor session. That, he said, is the only place on BASIS where you can find the voting records. You have to look, day by day, bill by bill.
You can find these a couple of ways. Here's the easiest for me.
BASIS - HOUSE JOURNAL
This is the "Bills & Laws" tab on BASIS (see the white tab on top.)
Leave House Journal marked. Then slide down to the bottom of that list to
"Journal Date Range from" and put in the dates that you want. I've got it set for
040510. I know, it's a little clunky, but at least this one is easy to figure out. That will get you to the House Journal for April 5, 2010 which looks like this:
Now, I've put up yesterday's House Journal because today's isn't up yet.
CRAZY BLOGGERS
There is another way to find out how people voted - find a blogger who posts the votes. But this service - posting pictures of the votes - is probably a one day event. Here's today's House Votes.
| HB 355 | CRIMINAL FINES FOR ORGANIZATIONS | PASSD(H) RECON NTCE | 04/06/10 |
This passed, but some members said they hadn't read it, so they voted for it, then voted for reconsideration. That means they can bring it up again tomorrow if, after reading it, they have a problem.
This one has to go to the Senate from here. It's day 78, so there are 12 days left for it to pass or die. Since this is the second session of the 26th Legislature (two a year beginning 52 years ago), whatever doesn't get passed, dies, and has to begin again from scratch in the 27th Legislature.
HB 357AK RAILROAD CORP. LAND SALES 3RD RDG,4/7 CAL(H) 04/06/10
Sorry, I didn't figure out I should take all these pictures until the next one, so I don't have this vote.
| SB 307 | SHELTERS FOR RUNAWAY MINORS | PASSED (H) | 04/06/10 |
This, as I understood it, closes a loophole in State law that will allow Covenant House to qualify for federal funding.
Open means the vote is not yet finished. When it is closed, it says that in red as you'll see in one of the other pictures below. Here I think Doogan was out of the room so he doesn't show as having voted. I don't recall if he managed to vote before it closed. But obviously his vote wasn't terribly important here.
SJR 27FED. FUNDING: DOMESTIC SEAFOOD MARKETING PASSED (H) 04/06/10
SCR 12FETAL ALCOHOL SPECTRUM DISORDERS DAY PASSED (H) 04/06/10
SCR 13SUPPORTING SENIOR CAREGIVERS PASSED (H) 04/06/10
You can see the first two are legislation that originated in the House because they begin with H. The rest are items that have made it through the Senate already and the begin with S.
ONE MORE WAY TO SEE THE VOTES
There is one more place you could get this information if you really needed it right away: from Gavel to Gavel.
You can watch the broadcast originating from KTOO in Juneau. They usually play it close to live (sometimes it's a little delayed if another meeting goes over.) They usually play the House floor a second time. (It's scheduled for 6pm today.) But you'd have to look quick if you wanted to know how each person voted. Here's the Broadcast Schedule page below.
The very bottom line shows it was scheduled at 10:30 today. On the actual page you could scroll down and see it's scheduled again for 6:05pm (but remember the schedule changes as things happen.) To find out where you can watch it - it the Where to Tune link (see the red mark on the left of the page above.) It shows where people can see this on cable around the state.
You could also listen to the audio of the Floor Session, but unless they did a roll call vote, that wouldn't tell you how each representative voted.
Thanks for posting this. It's very frustrating not to be able to track that stuff down in a more efficient manner, but at least this provides a cumbersome-but-still-workable way to find out how our legislators voted.
ReplyDeleteI am usually looking for a vote on a particular bill. For that, pull up the bill in basis, and scroll down the action until you get to the vote. There will be a link next to it that pulls up the journal page the vote is on. However, the journal isn't available until the secretary and clerk's offices finish the journal sometime after floor session.
ReplyDeleteI remember that in important cases the representatives asked one by one to say whether they vote for yes or no or they abstain from voting. I do not remember to the case though.
ReplyDelete