By Bob Katzen
THE HOUSE AND SENATE: There were no roll call votes in the House or Senate last week. This week, Beacon Hill Roll Call reports local representatives’ roll call attendance records for the 2023 session through December 1.
The House has held 70 roll calls so far in 2023. Beacon Hill Roll Call tabulates the number of roll calls on which each representative was present and voting, and then calculates that number as a percentage of the total roll call votes held. That percentage is the number referred to as the roll call attendance record.
In the House, 70.6 percent (113 representatives out of 160) did not miss any roll calls and have 100 percent roll call attendance records, while 29.4 percent (47 representatives out of 160) have missed one or more roll calls.
There were 13 representatives who missed eight or more roll calls resulting in roll call attendance records below 90 percent. The four representatives who missed the most roll calls are Reps. Michelle Ciccolo (D-Lexington), Richard Haggerty (D-Woburn), Daniel Hunt (D-Dorchester) and Joan Meschino (D-Hull) who each missed 25 roll calls for a 64.2 percent roll call attendance record.
Rounding out the list of 13 representatives who missed eight or more roll calls are the following: Reps. Tram Nguyen (D-Andover) who missed 23 roll calls (67.1 percent roll call attendance record); Mary Keefe (D-Worcester) who missed 13 roll calls (81.4 percent roll call attendance record); Kenneth Gordon (D-Bedford) and Chynah Tyler (D-Roxbury) who each missed 12 roll calls (82.8 percent roll call attendance record); Tricia Farley-Bouvier (D-Pittsfield), Adam Scanlon (D-North Attleborough), Kim Ferguson (R-Holden), and Fred Barrows (R-Mansfield) who each missed nine roll calls (87.1 percent roll call attendance record); and Margaret Scarsdale (D-Pepperell) who missed eight roll calls (88.5 percent roll call attendance record.
Beacon Hill Roll Call contacted the 13 representatives to ask why they missed some roll calls. Only five of the 13 responded. The other eight were contacted three times but did not respond. The list of nonrespondents consists of Reps. Nguyen, Keefe, Gordon, Tyler, Farley-Bouvier, Scanlon, Ferguson and Barrows.
Here are the responses:
Rep. Hunt responded: “Up until this date I have not missed a roll call. Last minute, I had to go get my child from daycare because they had a fever. I’ve previously voted in favor of the budget line items and the tax proposal.”
Rep. Scarsdale responded: “On September 27 I had to leave the chamber subsequent to roll call #49 due to a preplanned meeting with first responders in my district. This is the only day I have left the chamber during roll call votes during my tenure. I therefore missed roll calls #50 through #57. [Acting] Speaker Alice Peisch made a statement on the floor reflecting the reason I had to leave, and the fact that had I been present I would have voted in the affirmative for all eight of those roll calls, and this statement is recorded in the House Journal for the day. All eight of those votes resulted in an affirmative outcome either unanimously or by a substantial margin.”
Rep. Haggerty responded: “I missed a single day of voting this session on September 27, 2023, when I was unfortunately not able to attend a session due to a family commitment. The first roll call vote was for the tax relief legislation which I had previously voted in favor of, and I would have voted in favor of again. The remaining procedural votes were overrides of the governor’s budget vetoes which were budget items I had previously voted in favor of. I would have voted in favor of each of those as well.”
Rep. Ciccolo responded: “This session, I was away from the House chamber during [a] formal session on a single day: September 27th, to attend a work-related conference at which I was learning about single use plastic reduction strategies through reuse and refill. This was the day the budget overrides were being taken up and H 4104 was being enacted. There were an unusually high number of roll call votes on that single day. Fortunately, the vast majority of the items voted on were items on which I had previously voted during the budget and during H 4104’s original engrossment, so my record in the affirmative on these matters should be clear.”
Rep. Meschino responded: “I was traveling internationally in September when the House scheduled a formal session. I made the commitment well over 15 months earlier. I had no way to know [what] the session schedule would be. The House voted [for] two conference committee reports and a series of budget veto overrides. I only missed the one day of formal session, but the House took up quite a few votes that day.”
REPRESENTATIVES’2023 ROLL CALL ATTENDANCE RECORDS THROUGH DECEMBER 1, 2023
The percentage listed next to the representatives’ name is the percentage of roll call votes on which the representative voted. The number in parentheses represents the number of roll calls that he or she missed.
Rep. Christine Barber 100 percent (0) Rep. Mike Connolly 100 percent (0) Rep. Paul Donato 100 percent (0) Rep. Erika Uyterhoeven 97.1 percent (2)