Fact checker: Does Braley skip a lot of votes and hearings?

Introduction

'In Congress, Braley has skipped twice as many votes as any other Iowa congressman. When he sat on the Government Oversight Committee, he skipped 68 percent of the hearings even missing important hearings on Obamacare, while supporting Medicare cuts for Iowa seniors.

Source of claim

A television ad called 'Missed Votes' by the National Republican Senatorial Committee.

Analysis

U.S. Rep. Bruce Braley, a Democrat from Waterloo, who's running for U.S. Senate against Republican Joni Ernst, a state senator from Red Oak, has come under fire for missing votes and hearings.

The Republican Party of Iowa already zinged Braley for missing House Committee on Veterans' Affairs hearings in the 112th Congress in 2011-12, which we rated mostly true. Braley released a commercial defending his voting record and going on the offensive against Ernst's voting habits.

GovTrack.us, which compiles congressional votes, shows Braley's rate of missing votes is 4.9 percent, or missed 307 out of 6,292 votes since he took office in 2007.

Compared to other Iowa congressmen, Democratic Rep. Dave Loebsack has missed 2.3 percent of votes since 2007. Republican Tom Latham has missed .9 percent since 1995. Republican Steve King has missed 2.3 percent since 2003, according to GovTrack records. For good measure, Senators Tom Harkin, a Democrat, missed 4 percent, and Charles Grassley, a Republican, missed .3 percent.

The median rate for missed votes among all in the House is 2.5 percent, meaning Braley is absent twice as often as the norm.

The NRSC shared its research on the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform's hearing during Braley's terms in 2007-08 and 2011-12. We compared the research to information from the U.S. Government Printing Office, which documents committee hearings.

The NRSC analysis checks out.

Braley missed 91 of 130 hearings, or 70 percent, over the four years in the committee, including at least two hearings on the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare. A spot check of his participation in subcommittee meetings found he missed 26 of 31 hearings, or 83 percent, in 2011.

Braley's camp points out he had concurrent Veteran Affairs hearings on some days, and Braley missed the June 6, 2012, hearing because he was on his way back from visiting Taylor Morris, a Navy petty officer from Cedar Falls who lost parts of four limbs in a bomb blast May 3, 2012, in Afghanistan.

We previously rated the claim that Braley supports cutting Medicare for Iowa seniors as mostly false because reducing spending doesn't necessarily mean less services.

Conclusion

Braley has not missed many roll call votes, and the NRSC doesn't mention either that Braley has voted 95 percent of the time. Still, it is double the typical rate for absenteeism among Iowa representatives and all congressmen around the nation.

As for government-oversight hearings, he had conflicts and good reason in some cases, but hardly enough to account for missing 68-70 percent. The final piece of the claim about Medicare we previously rated mostly false, but it is not the focus of this ad.

We rate this ad as mostly true.

Sources

http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/browse/collection.action?collectionCode=CHRG&browsePath=112%2FHOUSE%2FCommittee+on+Oversight+and+Government+Reform&isCollapsed=false&leafLevelBrowse=false&isDocumentResults=true&ycord=569

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lAajSUcqMSU

https://www.govtrack.us/congress/members/IA

l Comments: (319) 339-3177; brian.morelli@thegazette.com