Christian Wade, “State lawmakers holding fewer recorded votes,” The Eagle-Tribune. March 12, 2024.
The number of roll call votes by the state House of Representatives has plummeted in recent years, prompting concerns from open government groups about a lack of transparency in Beacon Hill’s often secretive legislative process.
In the current legislative session, which got underway in January 2023, the House has held 81 roll calls that recorded how each lawmaker voted on specific bills, according to voting records from the House clerk’s office.
But the number of recorded votes has been declining for years, with 105 roll calls held during the preceding two-year session in 2021 and 2022, according to the data. In the 2017-18 session, the House held 313 roll call votes.
There has also been a decline of recorded votes in the state Senate, where 135 recorded votes were held during the 2021-22 session, according to the Senate clerk’s office. That’s compared to 186 roll call votes in the 2020-21 session.
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Jonathan Cohn, policy director of the group Progressive Massachusetts, said the lack of recorded votes deprives people of “opportunities to make progress on the many critical challenges” facing the state.
“So much of the legislative process occurs behind closed doors, and recorded votes are a critical opportunity for legislators to show the public where they stand,” he said in a statement.
