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The Democrats who control the California Legislature vote “no” on average less than 1% of the time. But one parishioner stands out even among this group of “yes” men and women.

Mike Fonga Democrat from Monterey Park, is the only one of California’s 120 state legislators who has never voted no on a law, according to the Digital Democracy database.

Fong has dutifully said “yes” during committee votes and pressed the green button at his desk on the House floor 9,389 times since he was sworn in on February 22, 2022.

Fong chairs the Assembly Higher Education Committee, and he sits on the Assembly Appropriations and Budget Committees, giving the Los Angeles County Legislature significant influence over how billions of Californians’ tax dollars are spent each year.

Fong’s office did not respond to an interview request from CalMatters this week. His office also declined to make him available earlier this year to discuss his voting record for one CalMatters and CBS News poll into the legislature’s voting trends.

The April survey revealed that California’s Democratic lawmakers vote “no” so rarely that critics say most of the more than 2,000 bills introduced each year appear to be decided in advance behind closed doors.

With the adjournment of the Legislature’s biennial session in August, the latest digital democracy data shows that pattern has not changed. Democrats voted “no” less than half of 1% of the time. Forty-seven of the 120 legislators voted “no” less than 10 times. During the two-year session, a Democratic legislator had an average of about 4,800 opportunities to vote on bills.

The fact that Fong has yet to say “no” to any of the thousands of bills he has considered over the past 33 months was one of the main reasons Long “David” Liu decided to run against Fong in this year’s election. Liu, a Republican attorney who heads a City of Industry law firm, is a longshot in the safe Democratic district that includes large Asian American communities southeast of Pasadena.

“It’s such a sacred job to vote as an assemblyman on the laws that would affect every single person living in the state of California,” Liu told CalMatters. “And he’s just casting his basic vote without knowing what the bill is, without knowing what the bill is about. I mean, just that’s scary.”

Fong said “no” but not to a bill

One of the lawmaker’s most prominent critics was also upset by Fong’s propensity to vote “yes” so often.

Scott Kaufmana lobbyist for the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association and a frequent critic of Democratic spending policies, told CalMatters that at first he couldn’t believe Fong had never voted “no.” He checked his group’s internal vote tracker and confirmed Digital Democracy’s findings. Kaufman said that because Fong votes “yes” on so many bills, he sometimes votes for the ones the tax advocacy group supports. Still, Kaufman said he hoped Fong didn’t reflexively vote “yes” on everything.

“If he’s pushing the ‘yes’ button just to push the ‘yes’ button, I’m worried,” he said.

Fong voted “no” earlier this month, but it wasn’t for legislation; it was on a procedural motion.

Fong hit the “no” button along with 49 other Assembly Democrats in response to a Republican motion to postpone Gov. Gavin Newsom’s special session on gas price hikes. Republicans opposed the session, saying any new fuel regulations would only raise gas costs for consumers. Moments after Fong and his colleagues killed the Republican motion, Fong pressed the green button and sent a invoice on refinery regulations to Newsom’s desk.

Lawmakers say not voting is no big deal

CalMatters and CBS News in April revealed that instead of voting “no,” many lawmakers are not voting at all. In the legislature, a non-vote counts as a “no” vote, as legislative rules require a fixed number of “yes” votes for a bill to move forward. Lawmakers regularly wait to vote on controversial bills as a way to avoid angering colleagues or angering powerful lobby groups that might see an official no vote as an affront.

As for not voting, Fong has only done so 75 times in 9,465 occasions. In other words, for every 100 bills that Fong had the opportunity to vote on, he voted “yes” 99 times. The average non-voting percentage for Fong’s Democrats is about 5%.

The Legislature’s online vote-tracking database does not distinguish whether non-votes are due to absenceabstentions because a legislator has a conflict of interest or if he or she simply declined to vote.

The legislature’s Democratic leaders have repeatedly refused to respond to CalMatters’ questions about concerns about not voting is to avoid responsibility for one’s decisions. Some veteran lawmakers also told CalMatters recently that they didn’t think not voting was a big deal. “I think it’s a non-issue,” said the outgoing Democratic Assembly member. Kevin McCarthy of Sacramento. “I think it’s an issue that you and reporters just pick up on. I think the bill passes or it doesn’t pass. I don’t think there’s a lot of drama in it.

McCarty did not vote 120 times this year in more than 2,500 occasions. He voted no nine times.

Brian Maienscheina San Diego Democratic assemblyman who is also unseated agreed. Maienschein did not vote 55 times this year in more than 2,400 occasions. He cast four no votes.

“A bill needs 41 yeses to pass, right?” he said. “So, I mean, if you don’t vote ‘yes,’ you don’t push that bill across the finish line. … I didn’t see it as something I thought was a big deal.”

Thomas Gerrity and Hans Poschman, members of the CalMatters Digital Democracy team, contributed to this story.