Why This San Diego Lawmaker Rarely Votes ‘No’
Sacramento Report Countdown
24 days until the end of the legislative session
88 days until the November election
David Alvarez rarely goes out of his way to vote “no.”
Yet, in practice, he has voted “no” by missing or choosing not to vote on more than 400 bills since January 2025, when the legislative session started. That’s more than any of his San Diego colleagues by a decisive margin, especially among other fellow Democrats, according to an analysis of his votes by Andrew Chan, an engineer for CalMatters’ Digital Democracy.
If a lawmaker doesn’t vote on a bill, it counts as “no vote recorded.” The online system doesn’t distinguish between an abstention, an absence or when the legislator is present but doesn’t vote. To add more confusion: Lawmakers typically abstain from voting on fellow lawmakers’ bills they don’t like to not upset their colleagues.
Often, the only way to get to the bottom of why a lawmaker didn’t vote is to ask them directly.
Alvarez said most of his 400 NVRs were because of absences.
“The vast majority of those, I was not in Sacramento. I was in the district or perhaps ill on one of those days,” he said, and that he didn’t know absences counted as NVRs.
Five absences last year account for nearly 64 percent of Alvarez’s missed votes, he said. Alvarez missed a total of 254 votes across five days last year.
On March 20, 2025 alone, Alvarez had 127 missed votes. That’s more in a single day than Assemblymember Chris Ward or Sen. Catherine Blakespear, both Democrats, has each accumulated over nearly two years.
Written by Nadia Lathan | August 7, 2026 | Voice of San Diego
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