Timmons Uses 180 Proxy Votes, of which only 25 Are Using SC Representation during the 117th Congress after Opposing It
How often do you come home from a hard day’s work and find bills in the mailbox among campaign postcards from those who remind you why you can't pay those bills due to the rising cost of inflation?
Or as you prepare for your evening meal, here comes out of their bedroom, your YouTube generation and online social media teenage child screaming how much they and their online friends hate a certain candidate’s interruptive campaign ads accusing their opponents repeatedly.
Well, one of those incumbent candidates has been consistently and repeatedly attacking his opponent for not having a perfect record and missing so many votes in his current State House tenure; and at the same time, bragging about how much a perfect attendance record he has had in his US House tenure compared to his opponent.
On closer inspection, there is more than meets the eye.
US Rep. William Timmons has been hounding his opponent, SC Rep. Adam Morgan, for missing what he claims are 393 votes in the South Carolina State House as of April 16, 2024, since becoming a legislator in 2019.
On April 16, 2024, State Representative and Republican congressional candidate Adam Morgan released the following statement regarding his opponent’s attacks:
“It’s interesting that my opponent attacks my attendance record at the South Carolina State House when I’ve participated in over 3,600 votes. I have one of the best attendance records in the State House and have only been absent ten days in my six years of service due to business trips, sickness, or death of extended family members. Meanwhile, my opponent was the 15th most absent Member of Congress in 2019-2020 and despite arguing against proxy voting, Timmons voted 62 times by proxy ranking him 25th out of 215 Republicans who used proxy voting the most in 2021.”
At a recent Greenville County Republican Executive meeting on April 1st, Timmons compared his attendance record to Morgan's. Timmons said he "technically" missed 158 votes in his five years as a congressman, 136 of which were due to his mandatory military training. However, this does not include all the proxy votes Timmons conveniently left out of his numbers.
During the 117th Congress, Session 1 (2021), Timmons missed 62 votes using a proxy vote given to various fellow congressmen cohorts. In Session 2 (2022), Timmons almost doubled that number with 118 proxy votes.
Let's calculate the sum of the numbers we have and then add it to the total missed votes he claimed at the executive committee meeting, which was 158. As a result, we get a total of 180 proxy votes. Next, let's add the number of proxy votes to the previously mentioned 158, which brings us to a total of 338.
It is worth noting that on May 15, 2020, a bill called H.Res. 965, sponsored by Democrats, was passed in the US House of Representatives. This bill introduced a new method of voting called proxy voting on the House floor, and it was the first time in the US House's history that such a method was used. The bill was passed with 217 yeas and 189 nays with no Republicans supporting it. This bill was introduced due to the current coronavirus pandemic.
The US Senate did not permit proxy voting in their chambers. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and 160 other Republican members sued Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the House clerk, arguing that the practice was unconstitutional.
In January 2022, the Supreme Court rejected McCarthy's challenge. About 70% of the Republicans who joined the lawsuit took advantage of the rule by asking a lawmaker in the chamber to record their vote as "yea" or "nay."
They openly opposed it at first—including Timmons. Yes, you heard me right. Timmons was strongly against it but ended up using it 180 times within the next two years.
Timmons posted regarding proxy voting that day:
"Tonight, the House voted to upend more than 200 years of precedent and allow remote voting by proxy. These new rules allow just 22 people on the House floor to pass legislation that impacts the entire country. Congress should be working on legislation to get millions of people and businesses back on their feet and restore our previously booming economy. To do so, we must be back in Washington discussing serious legislation, not hiding at home and legislating from our phones. Speaker Pelosi’s partisan resolution passed today will have us doing the latter.”
Click HERE for his official statement.
What changed, Congressman?
It is interesting to note that during 2021, Timmons chose his proxies, and out of the total of 62 proxy votes, only eight were cast by South Carolina Congressional representatives. The remaining 54 proxy votes were cast by representatives from other states as far as Pennsylvania, New York and North Dakota, who do not represent South Carolina Congressional districts. Moving on to the 2nd session of the 117th Congress in 2022, out of a total of 118 proxy votes, only 17 were cast by South Carolina US Congressmen.
During the first and second sessions of the 118th Congress, Timmons missed fewer days than he did during his previous terms. In January 2023, Kevin McCarthy eliminated voting by proxy. Perhaps, based on his past attendance record, Timmons can see that he was originally right about proxy voting but fell prey to its luxurious enticements and the lethargic tendencies of human nature.
If he is going to accuse others of being missing in action, he better take a look at his own record first. And if he is going to give out his numbers, Timmons better be as transparent before he charges his campaign opponent with the same. Disguising 180 proxies as his own “in-person” votes is misleading indeed. He was not present for 338 votes out of 1,952 total rollcall votes over his first two terms in Congress. He was not present for 17% of the votes.
I have one final question to ask. The congressman claims that his military service caused him to miss 136 out of 158 total missed votes during the 116th Congressional session. However, he has been voting regularly during the 118th Congress. How is it possible that he did not miss any days due to his military service this time?
Let’s clarify that we appreciate Rep. Timmons's service in our South Carolina Air National Guard as Captain and JAG Officer. We would never diminish his service, but it does bear the previous question: Numbers and data do not lie.
