The Instagram video was slick and quick, shifting from one Democratic state senator’s shrugging cameo to another while asking, “Where is Brenton Awa?”
All set to the sleuthing theme song from “The Pink Panther.”
Awa wasn’t in a State Capitol conference room. Nor his office. But finally — “Found Him” — he turns up at a Big Island hula festival.
“Bruddah missed voting on 66 bills for Merrie Monarch,” the video concludes.
That wasn’t entirely accurate — the Republican senator only went to the festival for one day earlier this year, hardly long enough to miss all the votes of a two-week conference committee period.
But the fact is, Awa did boycott conference committee, saying later that the end-of-session process to reconcile differences on bills is a waste of time for anyone who isn’t a top legislative leader.
That helped land him on the Top 10 List of Most Missed Votes last session, according to Civil Beat’s new Digital Democracy database.
Check out how lawmakers rank according to the number of votes they missed during the 2025 session. Click on “Absences” to reverse the order and see who missed the fewest votes. (Not included: The late Rep. Gene Ward and Rep. Joe Gedeon, who had not yet taken office.):
A review of the 2025 session using the Digital Democracy platform found that, while many legislators missed very few votes (or none at all), others missed dozens or even hundreds.
Civil Beat reached out to some of the legislators at both ends of the spectrum, and discovered that while some lawmakers see good attendance as sacrosanct, others see it as desirable but not essential if there’s someplace more important to be.
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The Top Non-Voters
Civil Beat has already reported that Maui Rep. Elle Cochran was pretty much a no-show last session, missing 51 of 60 floor sessions. What Digital Democracy tells us is when you add in her committee meetings, she missed 1,202 votes — almost twice as many as the No. 2 non-voter. She’s said the absence was due to a family illness and because she wanted to help fire-ravaged constituents by staying on Maui. She did not respond to a request for comment this week.
She continued to receive the same $225 per diem paid to all neighbor island legislators as well as others who stayed away from the State Capitol and missed numerous votes.
Cochran was likely the inspiration for a new House rule released Aug. 1 that defines excused and unexcused absences and states that per diem will no longer be paid for unexcused absences.
While Cochran, a Democrat, was the runaway leader in missed votes, five of the top 10 were Republicans, even though they hold only 12 of 76 legislative seats.
That may be because for every bill that reaches conference committee, one Republican is assigned to that committee. And since there are so few minority party lawmakers, they end up on an inordinate amount of conference committees.
GOP Sen. Kurt Fevella, for instance, was assigned to 201 conference committees last session. He was No. 3 on the list with 391 missed votes.
Explore detailed legislator profiles, voting records and what happens in hearings on Digital Democracy.
But Republican Rep. Elijah Pierick, who had far fewer conference committee assignments (57), still missed a lot more votes — 617 — to come in at No. 2 on the list.
“It’s never my intention to miss votes,” Pierick said Thursday, but he acknowledged missing three session days, including a crossover day when dozens of measures were voted on.
“I was on a business trip to California,” he said, explaining that as an ordained pastor he attended a meeting of the national cabinet of the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel.
Pierick noted that while he missed voting on a lot of measures on the House floor, he had already voted on many of them in committee meetings and prior floor sessions.
“I voted on the bills in committee,” he said. “I voted on the bills on the floor, because it has to go to the floor three times. So if I’m going to miss the fourth round of voting, to me it was worth it to go to my denomination’s national cabinet meeting.”
The ʻEwa Beach lawmaker also acknowledged missing some committee votes due to his commute.
“Sometimes there’s more traffic than expected,” he said “I didn’t leave early enough, so I miss it that way.”
“I definitely want to do better in 2026 and prayerfully not miss any floor sessions or any committee meetings.”
‘I’m Still Laughing About It’
Awa, the Senate minority leader, was assigned to conference committees for 66 bills even though he requested to be left off almost all of them.
Still, he took it in good stride when he was skewered by his Democratic colleagues in the Instagram post.
“It was funny, I’m still laughing about it,” he said.
“I chose to go to Merrie Monarch to watch,” Awa said. “We had three contestants from my district in Miss Aloha Hula night. We went over there that night, and so I missed a bunch of votes” in a floor session.
Awa was No. 8 on the list with 180 missed votes — not surprising since he was a no-show for the conference committee period.
“My first two sessions, I realized that you’re showing up to that and you have no say, you’re a rubber stamp,” he said. “There’s no testimony. It’s a real waste of two weeks.”
Sen. Tim Richards doesn’t agree with Awa’s assessment of the conference committee period.
“That’s where we’re trying to work out the details,” Richards said. “And we did get some details worked out on some of the bills I was working on, and got them across the finish line. So that’s how I view it.”
The Big Island Democrat was one of the senators in the Instagram post asking “Where’s Brenton Awa?”
Which is interesting because Richards also made the list at No. 10 with 139 missed votes.
He said that was due to a couple of sick days, attending an alumni event for his alma mater, and a trip to Washington, D.C., with Lt. Gov. Sylvia Luke in which they met with Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins.
“Vote tallies are one metric, but there are reasons that some of our colleagues are going to miss it, because they are taking care of state business in another capacity,” Richards said.
“There are so many things pulling on us,” he said. “And sometimes our time is better spent going to Washington, D.C., taking care of that stuff, because the fact is I was able to express my concerns directly to the secretary, not to staff, but to the secretary herself. That’s a big deal for us.”
The Steady Presences
At the other end of the missed votes list are lawmakers with perfect or near-perfect attendance. This is most easily accomplished by the top legislative leaders. The House speaker and Senate president, for instance, are not on any committees and generally wield the gavels during floor sessions.
Hawaiʻi Legislators
Explore detailed legislator profiles, voting records, and hearing participation on Digital Democracy. Visit Digital Democracy
Speaker Nadine Nakamura didn’t miss a vote, and neither did last session’s money chairs, Sen. Donovan Dela Cruz and Rep. Kyle Yamashita, neither of whom serve on any other committee. Senate President Ron Kouchi, however, managed to miss 14. which kept him off the Top 10 List for steady voting.
Most impressive is the near-perfect attendance of the rank-and-file legislators serving on several committees. But they’ll tell you it’s all in a day’s work.
“It’s not hard,” said Rep. Amy Perruso, who missed only two votes all session. “Committee meetings are not scheduled in a mutually exclusive way. As long as I’m showing up for work, then I should be there for all the votes. So I haven’t really experienced any challenges in that regard.”
Ditto for Rep. Gregg Takayama, who matched Perruso’s attendance record.
“Somebody once said that 70% of getting your job done is showing up to work every day,” Takayama said. “So I’m a great believer in trying to show up for every day as much as you can. I’m proud of my attendance record.
But both of them had empathy for legislators who didn’t vote as often. And they noted that when they’ve chaired committees, members have been good about notifying them in advance if they can’t attend a meeting.
Said Takayama: “I’m 73 but you know, I look at it this way, that it’s probably easier for me being an older Oʻahu legislator, as opposed to, say, a neighbor island one, particularly one who may be a parent of a youngster, because inevitably, there are school events or school meetings that crop up, because that happened to me when I was much younger. So I can feel for that having an effect on legislators when they if they miss the vote or miss something else.”
Perruso put it this way: “Everyone is expected to show up, right? We treat our colleagues as adults. They’re responsible for themselves, and the expectation is that they show up and not just show up, but participate, ask questions, get to understand the legislation better and vote.
“But I think people have a range of obligations outside the building, sometimes to their communities,” she said. “Sometimes there’s things going on in the community. Sometimes there are family crises.
“I’m fortunate that my children are grown, and while driving to the Capitol every day is an arduous kind of endeavor, it’s my job, and I’m pretty singularly focused on this mission.”
UPDATE: A previous version of this story did not contain the new House rules for excused and unexcused absences issued Aug. 1 by Speaker Nadine Nakamura.
Foaad Khosmood, the research director for Digital Democracy, contributed to this report.
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