Republican senator missed votes while in El Salvador

OLYMPIA, Wash. (AP) — Republican Sen. Doug Ericksen has missed more votes than any other state lawmaker this year, with some of his absences from the current legislative action occurring while he was observing elections in El Salvador.  Ericksen’s roll call voting record for the session through March 9 shows he missed 38 of 205 votes on bills’ final passage. Using that same data, senators had been marked “absent” or “excused” 131 times at that point in session for those sort of votes — Ericksen accounted for 29 percent of them. Lawmakers are currently in the midst of a mostly remote 105-day session and there’s no rule prohibiting senators from being out of the state.