THE LYNNFIELD ADVOCATE – Friday, September 8, 2017
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Beacon Hill Roll Call By Bob Katzen THE HOUSE AND SENATE: There were no roll calls in the House or Senate last week. SENATORS’ VOTES WITH THEIR PARTY LEADERSHIP
- This week, Beacon Hill Roll Call reports the percentage of times local senators voted with their party’s leadership in 2017 through Sept. 1.
The votes of the 2017 membership of 5 Republicans were compared with those of GOP Senate Minority Leader Bruce Tarr (R-Gloucester). The votes of the 2017 membership of 32 Democrats were compared to House Majority Leader Harriette Chandler (D-Worcester), second in command in the Senate. We could not compare the Democrats’ votes to those of Senate President Stan Rosenberg (D-Amherst) because by tradition, the Senate president rarely vote. Beacon Hill Roll Call uses 73 votes from the 2017 Senate session as the basis for this report. This includes all roll calls that were not on local issues. None of the 32 Democratic senators voted with Chandler 100 percent of the time. Twelve came very close and voted with Chandler all but one time. The Democratic senator who voted the lowest percentage of times with Chandler was Sen. Walter Timilty (D-Milton) who voted with Chandler only 90.4 percent of the time. None of the five GOP senators voted with Tarr 100 percent of the time. The Republican senator who voted the lowest percentage of times with Tarr was Sen. Richard Ross (R-Wrentham) who voted with Tarr only 94.5 percent of the time.
SENATORS’ PERCENTAGE OF VOTES SUPPORTING THEIR PARTY’S LEADER IN 2017 The percentage next to the senator’s name represents the percentage of times the senator supported his or her party’s leader. The number in parentheses represents the number of times the senator opposed his or her party’s leader. Some senators voted on all 73 roll call votes. Others missed one or more of the 73 votes. The percentage for each senator 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. Sen. Thomas McGee 97.3 percent (2) 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 August 28-September 1, the House met for a total of 53 minutes while the Senate met for a total of one hour and 13 minutes. MON.AUG. 28 House11:01 a.m. to11:43 a.m. Senate 11:03 a.m. to11:48 a.m. TUES. AUG. 29 No House session No Senate session WED.AUG. 30 No House session No Senate session THURS.AUG. 31 House11:02 a.m. to11:13 a.m. Senate 11:03 a.m. to11:31 a.m. FRI.SEPT. 1 No House session No Senate session Bob Katzen welcomes feedback at bob@beaconhillrollcall.com
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