Bachmann, Paul miss stopgap spending votes

Reps. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) and Ron Paul (R-Texas) missed a series of votes to keep the federal government functioning Wednesday and Thursday, amid busy presidential campaigns that have seen them crisscrossing the country.

For Bachmann, it's been more than 50 days since she cast a vote in the House. 

Neither Bachmann nor Paul voted Wednesday when the House tried, and failed, to pass a stopgap bill to keep the government running into October. The bill fell short when Democrats opposed it because of disaster aid-related offsets and conservative Republicans opposed it because it didn't go far enough to cut spending.

After being tweaked by House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), the bill passed the House Thursday night, but only by a 16-vote margin. Paul and Bachmann were in Florida appearing onstage together at a Fox News/Google debate for GOP presidential candidates.

While missing votes due to the demands of participating in a presidential campaign is an inevitability for sitting members of Congress, missing key votes or having a high absentee rate can be used by opponents to argue a politician cares more about his or her career than about good governance.

Bachmann's last vote in the House came Aug. 1, when she voted to reauthorize a government advisory agency, according to a vote database maintained by The Washington Post. Paul last voted on Sept. 15 in favor of a bill reining in the power of the National Labor Relations Board to decide where businesses can and can't move.

The Hill reported in July that Bachmann had missed nearly 40 percent of House votes since formally launching her presidential bid a month earlier. Paul had missed about 8 percent since entering the race in May.

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