Indianapolis is My Home

28
Sep

Julia Carson Missing 13% of Congress Votes this Year

Author: Jason Bean, Category: Elected Officials, Government, Health

Indiana Representative Julia Carson has been absent from her role as a member of Congress over the past few days. She has missed 71% of the votes cast from the floor since Labor Day.

It appears the cause is for health reasons, but even when she’s there it doesn’t appear she’s been physically capable of performing her duties as she’s been elected to do so.

A Capitol Hill newspaper reported Thursday that Carson, who has been using a wheelchair to get around the Capitol, has had aides and colleagues insert her voting card into the voting machines on her behalf when she has been present and voting.

Sistek said she sometimes asked for assistance with her voting card.

“Ordinarily, what she asks for is help getting it out of the card holder. But on a particularly bad day, she might ask somebody to put it in the machine and then she’ll push the button,” Sistek said. “It’s her vote, she’s casting the vote. She’s asking for assistance to place the card.”

Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Org., one of the lawmakers who has assisted Carson, said he was trying to be a gentlemen last week after seeing Carson in her wheel chair at the bottom of a series of stairs leading up to the voting machine.

“It was clear she was going to have difficulty getting out of her chair and up the stairs to vote in time,” DeFazio said in a statement.

He said he saw her vote card in her hand, offered to insert it for her, and asked how she wanted to vote.

“She answered with a lucid `yes,’” DeFazio said. “I took the card and within her full view, I inserted and voted ‘yes’ on her behalf and took the card back to her and confirmed the `yes’ vote.”

Doesn’t appear that anyone knows the reason of her absence currently, only that she requested an absence and was granted that request. Her ability to do her job reliably doesn’t look like it’s going to impact her desire to run again in the next election though.

It reminds me of a post I wrote last year about Rep. Carson’s abilities as an elected representative. To see how she’s voted on a variety of key votes you can see all those details at Congress.org.

Source: Rep. Carson absent without explanation