See how often your state representative didn’t vote

Nearly 300 this year.

That’s how many times Asssemblymember David Alvarez, part of San Diego’s 12-member delegation to the California Legislature, didn’t cast a vote in 2025.

He isn’t the only one who missed a number of opportunities to vote during the current legislative period. An analysis from news partner CalMatters found that the average Democratic state lawmaker failed to register almost 100 votes since March. Republicans missed even more — an average of nearly 400 votes.

Not so simple: There are a few reasons a lawmaker may choose to incur an NVR, or “no vote recorded.” Those include an excused absence for medical or other reasons (not being present) or not wanting to take a stance on a bill (what the U.S. Congress calls voting “present”) that could anger colleagues and constituents. 

Reason unclear: The state Legislature doesn’t have a way to differentiate NVRs for choosing not to record a vote versus being absent for one, making it difficult to know how many were a result of policy decisions or just not showing up.

What they said:

• Assemblymember Carl DeMaio voted against bills 36% of the time — the highest percentage of “no” votes among the Republican legislators — and missed 135 votes this year. He told CalMatters he’s been trying to press his Republican colleagues to vote “no” more often instead of holding off, but he also criticized Democrats who don’t vote. “It’s the chickenshit way of saying, ‘Well, I think this is a really bad bill, but I don’t want to offend my colleague by voting ‘no,’ ” he said.

• We contacted the offices for the rest of the San Diego-area lawmakers. Only Assemblymember Chris Ward responded, providing this statement: “The CalMatters analysis showed that Assemblymember Ward cast votes on 96.7% of the items that came to the floor, remarkably outpacing all of his Republican colleagues,” a spokesperson for the Democrat said in an email. “Of those not cast, most were taken up when he had an excused absence.”

Explore the data: See how your representative compares to others nearby in the maps below.

inewsource community reporting intern Rami Alarian contributed to this report.