Saugus – December 17, 2021

By Bob Katzen

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  THE HOUSE AND SENATE: There were no roll calls in the House or Senate last week. This week, Beacon Hill Roll Call reports on the percentage of times local representatives voted with their party’s leadership in the 2021 session. No more roll calls are planned in the House until January 2022.

  The votes of the 2021 membership of 28 Republicans were compared with those of GOP House Minority Leader Brad Jones (R-North Reading). The votes of the 2021 membership of 128 Democrats were compared to House Speaker Ron Mariano (D-Quincy).

  Beacon Hill Roll Call uses 90 votes from the 2021 House session as the basis for this report. This includes all roll calls that were not quorum calls or votes on local issues.

  THE DEMOCRATS: A total of 100 (78.1 percent) of the 128 Democrats voted with Mariano 100 percent of the time. That means that nearly four-fifths of the Democrats always voted with Mariano. Another 14 Democrats (10.9 percent) voted against Mariano only once. Only four Democrats (3.1 percent) voted with Mariano less than 90 percent of the time.

  The Democratic representative who voted the lowest percentage of times with Mariano is Rep. Erika Uyterhoeven (D-Somerville) who voted with Mariano only 84.2 percent of the time.

  She is followed by Reps. Mike Connolly (D-Cambridge) 85.5 percent; Rep. Colleen Garry (D-Dracut) 87.6 percent; Tami Gouveia (D-Acton) 89.7 percent; and Nika Elugardo (D-Jamaica Plain) 92.2 percent

  THE REPUBLICANS: None of the 28 GOP members voted with Jones 100 percent of the time. Twenty Republicans (71.4 percent) voted with Jones at least 90 percent of the time. Eight Republicans (28.5 percent) voted with Jones less than 90 percent of the time.

The Republican representative who voted the lowest percentage of times with Jones was Rep. Joseph McKenna (R-Webster) who voted with Jones only 85.5 percent of the time.

He is followed by Reps. Peter Durant (R-Spencer) 86.6 percent; Nick Boldyga (R-Southwick) 87.6 percent; Alyson Sullivan (R-Abington) 87.6 percent; and Marc Lombardo (R-Billerica) 87.7 percent.

REPRESENTATIVES’ SUPPORT OF THEIR PARTY’S LEADERSHIP IN 2021

  The percentage next to the representative’s name represents the percentage of times the representative supported his or her party’s leadership in 2021. The number in parentheses represents the number of times the representative opposed his or her party’s leadership.

  Some representatives voted on all 90 roll call votes. Others missed one or more roll calls. The percentage for each representative is calculated based on the number of roll calls on which he or she voted and does not count the roll calls for which he or she was absent.

Rep. Jessica Giannino 100 percent (0)

Rep. Donald Wong 96.6 percent (3)

  HOW LONG WAS LAST WEEK’S SESSION? Beacon Hill Roll Call tracks the length of time that the House and Senate were in session each week. Many legislators say that legislative sessions are only one aspect of the Legislature’s job and that a lot of important work is done outside of the House and Senate chambers. They note that their jobs also involve committee work, research, constituent work and other matters that are important to their districts. Critics say that the Legislature does not meet regularly or long enough to debate and vote in public view on the thousands of pieces of legislation that have been filed. They note that the infrequency and brief length of sessions are misguided and lead to irresponsible late-night sessions and a mad rush to act on dozens of bills in the days immediately preceding the end of an annual session.

  During the week of December 6-10, the House met for a total of nine minutes while the Senate met for a total of 26 minutes.

Mon. Dec. 6 House 11:02 a.m. to 11:04 a.m.

                     Senate 11:34 a.m. to 11:40 a.m.

Tues. Dec. 7 No House session

                      No Senate session

Wed. Dec. 8 No House session

                     No Senate session

Thurs. Dec. 9 House 11:08 a.m. to 11:15 a.m.

                       Senate 11:06 a.m. to 11:26 a.m.

Fri. Dec. 10 No House session

                    No Senate session

Bob Katzen welcomes feedback at bob@beaconhillrollcall.com