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THE EVERETT ADVOCATE – Friday, January 10, 2020 Page 21 two-thirds of the Democrats always voted with DeLeo. The Democratic representaWith today's edition, The Everett Advocate begins coverage of the 2020 Massachusetts legislative session with our weekly Beacon Hill Roll Call report. This feature is a clear and concise compilation of the voting records of local state representatives and senators. Beacon Hill Roll Call provides an unbiased summary of bills and amendments, arguments from floor debate on both sides of the issue and each legislator's vote or lack of vote on the matter. This information gives readers an opportunity to monitor their elected officials' actions on Beacon Hill. Many bills are reported on in their early stages, giving readers the opportunity to contact their legislators and express an opinion prior to the measure being brought up for fi nal action. Beacon Hill Roll Call is written and provided by owner/publisher Bob Katzen, a former Boston radio talk show host at WRKO, WITS and WMRE. Bob has been providing this feature to hundreds of newspapers across the Bay State for 45 years since 1975. Bob invented the “Bagel Route” when he was 10 years old. It’s like a paper route but Bob took pre-orders from neighbors and delivered bagels every Sunday morning. THE HOUSE AND SENATE. The House and Senate began the 2020 legislative session last week with its usual ceremonies, always with much pomp and circumstance. There were no roll calls in the House or Senate. This week Beacon Hill Roll Call reports on how often local representatives voted with their party's leadership in 2019. The votes of the 2019 membership of 31 Republicans were compared with those of GOP House Minority Leader Brad Jones (R-North Reading). The votes of the 2019 membership of 126 Democrats were compared to House Speaker Bob DeLeo (D-Winthrop). Beacon Hill Roll Call uses 121 votes from the 2019 House session as the basis for this report. This includes all roll calls that were not quorum calls or votes on local issues. A total of 82 (65 percent) of the 126 Democrats voted with DeLeo 100 percent of the time. That means that nearly tive who voted the lowest percentage of times with DeLeo is Rep. Colleen Garry (D-Dracut) who voted with DeLeo only 73.2 percent of the time. She is followed by Reps. Patrick Kearney (D-Scituate) 76.1 percent; Russell Holmes (D-Boston) 77.9 percent; Angelo Scaccia (D-Boston) 81.6 percent; Denise Provost (D-Somerville) 83 percent. Only two (6.4 percent) of the 31 GOP members voted with Jones 100 percent of the time. The Republican representative who voted the lowest percentage of times with Jones was Rep. Mike Soter (R-Bellingham) who voted with Jones only 88.5 percent of the time. He is followed by Reps. David DeCoste (R-Norwell) and Peter Durant (R-Spencer), both at 90 percent; and David Vieira (R Falmouth) and Tim Whelan (R-Brewster) both at 91.5 percent. BLINDLY FOLLOW THE LEADER?–Below is a reprint of a Beacon Hill Roll Call exclusive story from February 2019. It might help readers to understand why so many Democratic representatives vote with House Speaker Bob DeLeo 100 percent of the time. The House uses a large electronic voting board that shows how each representative votes on a roll call. Members press a button at their desks and their vote appears next to their name on the board for everyone to see. When a representative votes “yes,” a green light appears next to his or her name. When he or she votes “no,” a red light appears next to his or her name. On January 30, the House was debating the joint rules under which the House and Senate would operate in 2019-2020. House Speaker Bob DeLeo (D-Winthrop) rarely presides over a session and this day was no diff erent as Rep. Tom Petrolati (D-Ludlow) was the acting speaker and the presiding offi cer calling the shots. As the debate dragged on, House GOP Minority Leader Brad Jones (R-North Reading) off ered an amendment that would repeal a rule, used for the fi rst time in 2018, that prohibited the appointment of a conference committee after July 17, 2018. A conference committee is a six-member committee appointed by the House speaker and the Senate president to work out a compromise version of a bill when the House and Senate approve diff erent versions of the measure. Jones spoke in favor of his amendment and no one spoke against it. His amendment was non-controversial. Jones said that the new rule, pushed by the Senate leadership in the rules adopted for the previous two-year session, was designed to have more legislation acted upon and more transparency. The rule forces lawmakers to appoint a conference committee well before July 31 after which the rules basically make it impossible to appoint a conference committee because the House and Senate meet only in brief, informal sittings a couple of days a week until the annual session ends at the beginning of January 2019. The rationale was that a conference committee often takes weeks to hammer out a compromise bill and any committee appointed after July 17 would likely not have time to reach an agreement. Critics say that the new rule backfi red and failed to accomplish its intent. Each branch had approved diff erent versions of an important $666 million economic development package but it was after July 17 – too late to appoint a conference committee under the new rule. The House and Senate on July 23 began meeting behind closed doors and then sending diff erent versions of the bill to each other until the Senate ended up accepting a new House version which neither House or Senate members had any time to read. Despite that, on July 31, the House approved the package 151-0 and the Senate passed it 36-0. Gov. Baker signed the bill after vetoing several sections. Seconds after the roll call on the Jones amendment began, Acting Speaker Petrolati and Speaker DeLeo both voted “no” and a red light appeared next to their names. According to House rules, the acting speaker (Petrolati) actually casts the vote for the speaker and a court offi cer casts the vote for the acting speaker. As is often the case, many Democrats quickly took their cue from DeLeo and Petrolati and voted “no” as well. This is not an uncommon occurrence in the House. In this case, it was at least 63 Democrats who played “follow the leader” and voted “no.” As the board began to fi ll up with “no” votes, Petrolati apparently took notice and talked into a microphone he didn’t know was on. “It’s a yes?” “Switch ‘em. Yes, yes, yes, yes, Mikey,” shouted Petrolati to Division Leader Mike Moran. Suddenly, DeLeo and Petrolati’s votes switched to “yes.” And then 63 Democrat who had initially voted “no” suddenly switched his or her vote to “yes.” The House’s only unenrolled non-party affi liated member Susannah Whipps (U-Athol) had also voted “no” and then switched to “yes.” There may have been more than 63 Democrats who fi rst voted “no.” While the “no” votes appeared on the electronic voting board for a brief time, once the switchers changed their vote to “yes,” there was no longer a permanent record of the “no” vote. Beacon Hill Roll Call watched a videotape of the session in order to see who voted “no” at the beginning. The camera pans the scoreboard a few times but there is no guarantee we were able to spot every red light. You can see the story unfold by watching the video of the January 30 House session at https://malegislature.gov/ Events/Sessions/Detail/3297. Fast forward on the counter to 5:35:49 and watch it until 5:37:39. It all happened in a little over two minutes. To the reader and viewer, this appears that these 63 Democrats simply watched how DeLeo and Petrolati voted and blindly followed their lead and voted “no.” And then switched to “yes” when DeLeo and Petrolati switched to “yes.” Did these 63 even know what they were voting on? Did they care? What would cause them to switch their votes other than they decided to follow the “suggestion” of the speaker? Beacon Hill Roll Call set out to fi nd the answers and over the course of three days, sent two e-mails to each of the 63 Democrats who had fl ipflopped. The only response was from Rep. Paul Donato, a member of the leadership team who also usually acts as the acting speaker and presides over the sessions. Donato gave a brief explanation basically saying that there was confusion surrounding the vote and some members mistakenly voted “no” and then had to switch to “yes.” Not a single one of the other 63 representatives responded to our e-mails. Here are the 63 Democratic representatives and one unaffi liated non-party member who switched their votes from “no” to “yes. James Arciero (D-Westford), Brian Ashe (D-Longmeadow), Bruce Ayers (D-Quincy), Christine Barber (D-Somerville), John Barrett (D-North Adams), Jennifer Benson (D-Lunenburg), David Biele (D-South Boston), Antonio Cabral (D-New Bedford), Daniel Cahill (D-Lynn), Daniel Carey (DEasthampton), Gerard Cassidy (D-Brockton), Michelle Ciccolo (D-Lexington), Claire Cronin (D-Easton), Daniel Cullinane (D-Boston), Mark Cusack (D-Braintree), Marcos Devers (D-Lawrence), Daniel Donahue (D-Worcester), Paul J. Donato (D-Medford), Michelle DuBois (D-Brockton), Carolyn Dykema (D-Holliston), Lori Ehrlich (D-Marblehead), Dylan Fernandes (D-Falmouth), Carole Fiola (D-Fall River), Sean Garballey (D-Arlington), Colleen Garry (D-Dracut), Kenneth Gordon (D-Bedford), Jim Hawkins (D-Attleboro), Stephan Hay (D-Fitchburg), Jonathan Hecht (D-Watertown), Kevin Honan (D-Boston), Louis Kafka (D-Sharon), Mary Keefe (D-Worcester), John Lawn (D-Watertown), David LeBoeuf (D-Worcester), Jack Lewis (D-Framingham), David Linsky (D-Natick), Jay Livingstone (D-Boston), Elizabeth Malia (D-Boston), Ronald Mariano (D-Quincy), Paul Mark (D-Peru), Christopher Markey (D-Dartmouth), Joseph McGonagle (D-Everett), Rady Mom (D-Lowell), Frank Moran (D-Lawrence), James Murphy (D-Weymouth), David Nangle (D-Lowell), Harold Naughton (D-Worcester), James O'Day (D-West Boylston), Jerald Parisella (D-Beverly), Smitty Pignatelli (D-Lenox), Dave Robertson (D-Tewksbury), Paul Schmid (D-Westport), Alan Silvia (D-Fall River), Theodore Speliotis (D-Danvers), Thomas Stanley (D-Waltham), Jose Tosado (D-Springfi eld), Paul Tucker (D-Salem), Chynah Tyler (D-Roxbury), Andres Xavier Vargas (D-Haverhill), Aaron Vega (D-Holyoke), John Velis (D-Westfield), RoseLee Vincent (D-Revere), Thomas Walsh (D-Peabody), Susannah Whipps (U -Athol). Beacon Hill Roll Call sent an e-mail to and asked the opinion of the 94 representatives who had not switched their votes and seemed to vote “yes” from the beginning. Only three of those members responded. A veteran Statehouse observer, who spoke on condition of anonymity said that is not surprising because those 94 representatives do want to antagonize the speaker by talking about “Follow the Leader.” “Welcome to the House of Representatives,” said Rep. Russell Holmes (D-Boston). “This is exactly how the House runs itself and the members should be ashamed. The speaker is like a shepherd leading a fl ock of sheep. Some BEACON HILL | SEE PAGE 22

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