California’s Yes Man: Meet the Democratic lawmaker who has never said no to a bill

Stay informed with free briefings on topics important to all Californians. Subscribe to CalMatters nonprofit news delivered to your inbox today.

The Democrats who control the California Legislature votes ‘no’ less than 1% of the time on average. But one Assembly member stands out even among this group of “yes” men and women.

Mike Fonga Democrat from Monterey Park, is the only one of California’s 120 state lawmakers who has never cast a “no” vote on a piece of legislation, according to the Digital Democracy database.

Fong dutifully said yes during the committee votes, pressing the green button on his desk on the floor of the General Assembly 9,389 times. sworn in on February 22, 2022.

Fong chairs the Assembly Higher Education Committee, and he serves on the Assembly’s appropriations and budget committees, giving the Los Angeles County lawmaker significant influence over how billions of California tax dollars are spent annually.

Fong’s office did not respond to an interview request from CalMatters this week. His office also refused to make him available earlier this year to discuss his voting record for A CalMatters and CBS News investigation in legislative voting trends.

The April survey found that Democratic lawmakers in California vote “no” so rarely that critics say most of the more than 2,000 bills introduced each year appear to have been decided in advance behind closed doors.

With the adjournment of the two-year session of the legislature in August, the latest data from Digital Democracy shows that the pattern has not changed. Democrats voted “no” less than half of 1% of the time. Forty-seven of 120 lawmakers voted “no” less than 10 times. During the two-year session, a Democratic lawmaker averaged about 4,800 opportunities to vote on bills.

The fact that Fong has yet to say “no” to any of the thousands of bills he has considered over the past 33 months was one of the main reasons Long “David” Liu decided to run against Fong at this year’s elections. Liu, a Republican lawyer who heads a law firm in City of Industry, is a fixture in the safely Democratic district that includes large Asian American communities southeast of Pasadena.

“It is such a sacred duty to cast a vote as a member of the Assembly on the laws that impact everyone who lives in the state of California,” Liu told CalMatters. “And he’s just casting his base vote without knowing what the bill is, without knowing what the bill is about. I mean, that’s just scary.”

Fong said no, but not to a bill

One of the Legislature’s most prominent critics was also baffled by Fong’s tendency to vote “yes” so often.

Scott Kaufmana lobbyist for the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association and a frequent critic of Democratic spending policies, told CalMatters that he initially couldn’t believe Fong had never voted “no.” He checked his group’s internal vote tracker and confirmed Digital Democracy’s findings. Kaufman said that because Fong votes “yes” on so many bills, he sometimes votes for the bills the tax fighter group supports. Still, Kaufman said he hoped Fong didn’t reflexively vote “yes” on everything.

“If he’s pushing the ‘yes’ button just for the sake of pushing the ‘yes’ button, I’m concerned,” he said.

Fong did vote “no” earlier this month, but it was not for legislation; it was a procedural motion.

Fong, along with 49 other Assembly Democrats, pressed the no button in response to a Republican motion to adjourn Governor Gavin Newsom’s special session on gas price spikes. Republicans opposed the session, saying new fuel rules would only increase gas costs for consumers. Moments after Fong and his colleagues rejected the Republican motion, Fong pressed the green button and sent a message. account about refinery regulations to Newsom’s desk.

Lawmakers say not voting is not a problem

CalMatters and CBS News revealed in April that instead of voting “no,” many lawmakers are not voting at all. In the legislature, a no vote counts the same as a “no” vote, because legislative rules require a fixed number of “yes” votes before a bill can move forward. Lawmakers regularly delay voting on controversial bills to avoid irritating colleagues or angering powerful lobby groups that might see an official “no” vote as an insult.

When it comes to not voting, Fong has only done so 75 times in 9,465 opportunities. In other words, for every 100 bills Fong could vote on, he voted yes 99 times. The average percentage of non-voters among Fong’s fellow Democrats is around 5%.

The Legislature’s online vote-tracking database does not distinguish whether there are no votes due to absencesabstentions because an MP has a conflict of interest or if he or she has simply refused to vote.

The Democratic leaders of the Legislature have done just that repeatedly refused to answer CalMatters’ questions about concerns that not voting avoids responsibility for their decisions. Some veteran lawmakers also recently told CalMatters that they didn’t think not voting was a big deal. “I think it’s a non-issue,” the outgoing Democratic Assembly member said. Kevin McCarty of Sacramento. “I think it’s an issue that you and the reporters are just fine-tuning. I think the bill may or may not be passed. I don’t think there’s much drama in that.”

McCarty has not voted 120 times in more than 2,500 opportunities this year. He voted ‘no’ nine times.

Brian Maienscheina Democratic Assembly member from San Diego, who is also excluded, agreed. Maienschein did not vote 55 times in more than 2,400 opportunities this year. He cast four ‘no’ votes.

“A bill needs 41 yeses to be passed, right?” he said. “So I mean, if you don’t vote ‘yes,’ you’re not going to push that bill across the finish line. … I didn’t see that as something that I thought was a big deal.

Thomas Gerrity and Hans Poschman, members of the CalMatters Digital Democracy team, contributed to this story.