McCain: I got dissed

Sens. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.) do not miss many votes, but to their surprise, they ended up missing one last week.

The Armed Services Committee leaders were questioning witnesses at a hearing on Wednesday when a floor vote was called. In an interview with The Hill last week, McCain noted that he waited for Levin to walk to the Senate floor.

McCain said, “I’ll be damned if they didn’t call the end of the vote and both of us were en route to the floor. That’s one of the first times that’s ever happened to me. I can see them dissing me, but [not Levin]!”

It was the first time Levin did not register a vote during the 111th Congress, according to The Washington Post’s voting database. McCain has missed less than 3 percent of votes this Congress.

In 2007, Sen. Robert Byrd confronted Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) after Reid closed the vote before the West Virginia Democrat made it to the floor. Reid has urged members to arrive to the Senate floor within the 15-minute vote time. It is common for votes to be held open past the allocated time, but the majority leader has indicated his desire to run the Senate more efficiently.

Unlike Levin and McCain, Byrd did make it to the floor on Wednesday for the roll call vote, which was on a motion related to the jobs package the Senate subsequently passed last week. The only other two senators who missed the vote were Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.), who is dealing with health issues, and Kay Bailey Hutchison, who is running in the GOP gubernatorial primary in Texas.

Levin’s and Reid’s offices did not comment.