WASHINGTON — A year after setting a record for vote participation, thanks largely to a pandemic-driven House rule allowing members to delegate someone else to vote for them, Congress kept up the pace in 2022 — even as the number of votes taken increased.
Overall, CQ Roll Call’s annual vote studies found that members of the House and Senate combined took positions on 97.5% of votes taken last year, the same as the record set in 2021, when Congress broke the previous record of 96.9% set in 2015.
Senate participation dipped, but the overall congressional rate did not because the House took 100 more votes than in 2021 and maintained a rate of 97.8% of members casting votes. The 22% increase over the number of House votes taken in 2021 was also an anomaly, marking the first time in 30 years that the number of votes increased in an election year.
