The Oklahoman Tracks Fallin's Attendance Record

The Oklahoman's Chris Casteel is tracking Congresswoman Mary Fallin's attendance record as she also campaigns for governor.

Writing on the newspaper's blog, Casteel reports the following:

U.S. Rep. Mary Fallin, R-Oklahoma City, returned to Washington on Wednesday and cast her first votes in the House this month, after missing 20 votes in March while campaigning for governor.

Fallin was “tweeting” from the campaign trail in western Oklahoma on Tuesday, as the House was in session. She missed three votes and an Armed Services subcommittee hearing about how the children of military personnel are affected by their parents’ deployments.

Last week, she missed a hearing in the same subcomittee in which the panel heard from the military officials in charge of doing a detailed study of how the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell would affect the armed forces.

Through Tuesday, Fallin had missed 31 of the 92 votes cast in 2010.

Most of the votes were on non-controversial bills, such as congratulating the New Orleans Saints for winning the Super Bowl.

But last week, Fallin, an advocate for small business and for road-building, missed the vote on a bill that would extend federal highway programs through the end of the year and offer new tax incentives to small businesses.

In an interview in November about how she would balance her job in Congress with campaigning for governor, Fallin said she would miss some votes. She said she didn’t consider resigning her House seat to campaign.

Katie Bruns, Fallin’s communications director in Washington, said Wednesday that Fallin “is working two full-time jobs right now _ representing the state’s 5th district and running to become Oklahoma’s next governor. It is going to be a delicate balance to ensure she makes as many votes as possible while sharing her plan to create more and better jobs with Oklahoma’s working families and small businesses.

“Mary has only missed 4.2% of votes this Congress and missed less than one percent of House votes between 2006 and 2009. Of her missed votes this year, most included post office namings, sports team congratulations and several other congressional recognitions.”

Bruns’ reference to the 4.2 percent of votes in this Congress includes all of the votes cast in 2009. A Congress has two sessions.

Bruns said, “Mary believes the next election for governor is an important one for the state and takes her service to Oklahoma seriously, and that means she’ll need to spend time in Oklahoma along with her time in Washington.”

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