OKLAHOMA CITY -- Rep. Trebor Worthen, who has missed nearly half of the votes cast in the House this legislative session, said Monday that he won't seek re-election.
Worthen, a key ally of former Speaker Lance Cargill's leadership team, said he is joining a political consulting firm that has helped get numerous Republicans elected in the House and Senate.
Worthen leads lawmakers in missing the most votes cast in the House this session, followed by Cargill.
Worthen has missed 45 percent of the votes through last week's session, House Journal records show. The legislator has missed 103 of the 224 votes cast.
Records show that Cargill, R-Harrah, has missed nearly a third of the votes, which amounts to 74 votes. Cargill stepped down as speaker shortly before the start of the session, when questions were raised about his failure to file and pay taxes on time.
Worthen said Monday, "My service over the last three sessions has proved I have a very solid attendance and voting record."
He said that he has been absent about five days since he became a lawmaker in 2004.
Many of the votes cast so far this session were for appropriations "shell" bills. These are measures to appropriate money to agencies, but there are no dollar amounts in the bills yet.
According to House records, five lawmakers have not missed a vote. They include Rep. John Carey, D-Durant; Rep. Scott Martin, R-Norman; Rep. John Wright, R-Broken Arrow; Rep. Eric Proctor, D-Tulsa, and Rep. Scott Inman, D-Oklahoma City.
Worthen said he will join A.H. Strategies as a senior associate but will continue serving the House this session.
A.H. Strategies is operated by Fount Holland and Karl Ahlgren. Worthen said he also has his own consulting firm that specializes in political advertising and "has clients in four states and the District of Columbia."
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Contact: State Rep. Lance Cargill
Capitol: (405) 557-7400
Cargill Statement on Attendance
OKLAHOMA CITY – In response to inquiries by Tulsa World reporter Mick Hinton concerning anonymous complaints about his attendance and legislative voting record, which are at best unfair snapshots that do not give full and proper context to the numbers, Representative Lance Cargill said the following:
“Over my eight years of legislative service, I have a 99 percent attendance record. I am one of only seven legislators who currently don’t accept state paid mileage or per diem for coming to the Capitol. Of the over 10,700 votes cast in the last 8 years, I have missed 283, or less than 3 percent.
“The majority of votes I have missed this year are on appropriations shell bills. At this stage of the legislative process, the bills don’t even have numbers in them and are simply being moved along as a procedural maneuver, almost always by overwhelmingly bipartisan votes, to get them into conference where budget numbers will be inserted in the finals day of session. Everyone at the Capitol, including the press, is familiar with this process. Of the five days I have missed this year, three were in the first week of session, when a grand total of one bill was passed. Again, everyone at the Capitol, including the press, is familiar with this process.
“Hinton claims that certain House members have ‘complained’ about my attendance record but won’t identify who they are. The use of anonymous sources in a story like this is troubling. There is no legitimate reason to shield the identity of people making these charges. Knowing who my accusers are would, for example, enable me to expose their motivations for unfair attacks or even compare my 99 percent attendance record to theirs and expose what I expect to be gross hypocrisy on the part of my shadowy, unnamed accusers.”
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And YES this was sent out with
YOUR tax Dollars !
And YES this was sent out with
YOUR tax Dollars !
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