Last weekend, at the Progressive Democrats of Massachusetts conference, I started thinking about the state of our legislature, i.e., how many progressives do we really have there. I’ve always been disappointed by the gap between the Massachusetts Democratic Party’s solidly progressive platform and the more watered-down agenda of the actual legislators, especially in light of the supermajorities in both houses.
I decided to pore through the Progressive Massachusetts scorecard for the 189th session, which was put up a few weeks ago. Scorecards, of course, are not perfect metrics. They cannot account for some key parts of the legislative process, such as determining the shape of a final bill or whether a bill ever gets a vote. They can’t account for the rationales (good or bad) for why people vote the way they do, and they do not include every vote. But they are still useful and revealing. A progressive legislator is someone who consistently votes for progressive bills and votes against reactionary ones.
What score merits considering a legislator to be “progressive”? In my opinion, you should have at least a 75%: in three out of every four votes included, you cast your lot with the progressive side. And if you have below a 50%, it might be time to check your party affiliation.
When doing this, I revised the numbers from the Progressive Mass scorecard slightly to avoid counting missed votes against people. Stars denote missed votes. If someone voted present, then I considered that the same as a vote against the progressive position.
As I noted, consistency is an important value when it comes to voting records, so if a legislator has a record from the 2013/4 legislative session, I marked that down as well for reference.
Here are the 2015/6 scorecards for the House and Senate. And here they are for 2013/4 for the House and Senate. You can see which votes were included and how other legislators fared.
Now on to what I found…
HOUSE
In the House, only 13 Democrats in the House have scores of at least 75%.
93%
Jonathan Hecht (D-Watertown) (2013/4: 85%)
Denise Provost (D-Somerville) (2013/4: 90%)
92%
Marjorie Decker*** (D-Cambridge) (2013/4: 85%)
Sean Garballey* (D-Arlington) (2013/4: 79%)
80%
Christine Barber (D-Medford)
Diana DiZoglio (D-Methuen) (2013/4: 30%)
Tricia Farley-Bouvier (D-Pittsfield) (2013/4: 85%)
Carmine Gentile (D-Sudbury)
Mary Keefe (D-Worcester) (2013/4: 90%)
Liz Malia (D-Jamaica Plain) (2013/4: 78%)
Frank Smizik (D-Brookline) (2013/4: 71%)
75%
Gloria Fox*** (D-Roxbury) (2013/4: 89%)
Adrian Madaro*** (D-East Boston)
***
The most noteworthy thing here to me was the huge shift in Diana DiZoglio’s score. If anyone has thoughts here, I’d be interested to hear them.
**
Two House Democrats have scores below 50%: Colleen Garry (D-Dracut), with a 40% (an improvement from her 15% in the 2013/4 session), and James Dwyer (D-Woburn), with a 47% (an improvement form his 30% in the 2013/4 session).
SENATE
In the Senate, only 11 Democrats had scores of at least 75%.
100%
Jamie Eldridge (D-Acton) (2013/4: 96%)
92%
Ken Donnelly (D-Arlington) (2013/4: 65%)
83%
Sonia Chang-Diaz (D-Jamaica Plain) (2013/4: 93%)
Patricia Jehlen (D-Somerville) (2013/4: 89%)
Dan Wolf (D-Harwich) (2013/4: 81%)
75%
Mike Barrett (D-Lexington) (2013/4: 67%)
Ben Downing (D-Pittsfield) (2013/4: 59%)
Linda Dorcena Forry (D-Dorchester) (2013/4: 56%)
John Keenan (D-Quincy) (2013/4: 48%)
Tom McGee (D-Lynn) (2013/4: 63%)
Mark Montigny (D-New Bedford) (2013/4: 70%)
***
7 Senate Democrats had scores of 50% and below.
50%
Mike Rush (D-West Roxbury) (2013/4: 33%)
42%
Anne Gobi (D-Spencer)
Michael Rodrigues (D-Westport ) (2013/4: 37%)
James Timilty (D-Walpole) (2013/4: 22%)
33%
Eileen Donoghue (D-Lowell) (2013/4: 33%)
Jennifer Flanagan (D-Leominster) (2013/4: 48%)
25%
Michael Moore (D-Millbury) (2013/4: 26%)
that my rep, Kate Hogan, who’s a member of the Progressive Caucus, scored only 67%. Though that’s up from 60% from 2013/14. Definitely going to look into her voting record more closely.
Kinda stunning.
On the House scorecard, so each vote is worth about 7% of the score. The scorecard, to me, demonstrates clearly that the problem is institutional – the vast majority of Democratic Reps in the House have a scorecard identical to the Speaker’s. Very few Democratic Reps voted differently than the Speaker more than once and to me that’s the real story here.
A data issue: some reps have large numbers of “Did Not Vote” which isn’t taken into account in the percentage. For example, Rep. Cariddi gets a 33% for only 5 “good” votes, but that’s 5 of 8. She didn’t vote on 7 of the 15 roll calls. Similarly, Rep. Marjorie Decker voted with the “progressive position” on 11 of 12 votes but has a score of 73% due to non-votes.
It appears the numerator here is the number of green pluses and the denominator is set at 15 even where the Rep didn’t vote on all 15. (To be clear, two of the three bills where Rep. Decker did not vote were bills where Democrats overwhelmingly went against the progressive position, so she may well have voted that way as well had she voted, but in fact we just don’t know.)
The PM scorecard itself counts NV as a ding. Jonathan must have done a LOT of work to un-ding it all! Kudos Jonathan for a great post.
The problem is soooo clearly institutional. From the Progressive MA Scorecard blog — look at all the Dems who voted lockstep with the Speaker!
More from the blog:
I just wonder if it should. I’d personally tend to count a NV as a “bad” vote only if there was evidence the Rep was skipping the vote specifically to avoid taking the bad vote. People who miss three months’ worth of votes because of personal issues wouldn’t fall into that category. But I imagine it would be difficult to sort out.
Based on a quick glance at the scorecard I’d bet that they not only matched DeLeo’s overall score, but that for about 57 of those 60 every single vote was the same as his. As the blog post you cite underlines, the scorecard is more effective at identifying the structural problem than in shedding light on individual legislators’ relative merit (beyond identifying the few willing to buck the speaker with some regularity and the many who are not).
If there’s no appetite for rules change (except to eliminate the Speaker’s term limits in 2015) and progressive primaries tend not to work, what exactly is to be done to get more progressive results out of the House?
Right, well, IMO, they’re there to do their jobs, and if they’re not there, they’re not doing their jobs, KWIM?
BUT, I think it’s important to note when someone has extenuating circumstances and every person should ask any of their legislators about notable absences. There are obviously circumstances where context matters and excuses. I do think it’s the legislators’ responsibility to communicate that.
The bigger issue.. “What exactly is to be done to get more progressive results out of the House?” — that’s the big one isn’t it.
My answer is: We need more activism. BUt that takes a lot of resources (time, treasure, people, education…). Slow long arc.
My Rep, Christine Barber, is clearly willing to vote against him occasionally, but she did vote to allow him to remain speaker for life, which, at least to me, has far more weight than the individual votes. Until we can reform the House rules, we’re not going to see much Progressive legislation coming out of the House, except when the Senate can force them to vote on it.
I may have been distracted when this vote took place, but essentially it ended the Speaker’s term limits, right?
If so, couldn’t the vote really have meant “Let’s avoid a Speakership fight right now?”
The Thug of the House, DeLeo, said on the day he crushed the democratic impulse of limiting the ability of a presiding office of either chamber to hold on to power for a limited duration:
And I am sure that all progressives are glad that DeLeo saved us in the first half of this decade from opiate abuse, gun violence and domestic violence. NOT.
https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2015/01/29/mass-house-brink-abolishing-term-limits-for-speaker-robert-deleo/C2gySNRBUj9qFgjAJOZBCJ/story.html
In another article just a day earlier, we had a different justification for Speaker for Life:
To interpret Bradley (D-Hignham), the House is the bastion of virtue against the Governor and Senate, and can do more damage to those other branches of government as long as the House is led by someone who puts himself above the citizens of the Commonwealth’s other elected officials. Let’s take special note of the ignorance in US political history in thinking that our Constitutional framers intended each of the separate legislative chambers to be co-equal partners with the Executive. It was always posited that the Executive branch, the Judicial branch and the two legislative branches acting jointly would share power in a tripartite democratic republic, not each of the legislative chambers being co-equals in a four-way government.
https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2015/01/28/house-seen-voting-abolish-speaker-deleo-term-limits/i24WKg7tXCXaWLmICJ0DSO/story.html
Also, my two cents is that a non-vote should count for 1/2 rather than assume one way or the other.
She was also one of the very few who voted against making DeLeo Speaker For Life.
While I disagreed with some of her votes in her first session, she strikes me as someone who’s actually in public service for the right reasons. (<- I realize that's not terribly deep.)
DiZoglio saw what happened to her “big sister” Sen. Katy O’Connor Ives. Ives got primaried for her very un-Progressive voting record last term. Like Ives, whose record also improved dramatically this term, DiZoglio saw error of her ways.
…and has another one this year. There’s a lot of things not being what they seem in this neck of the woods. Ives was thought by many to be more progressive when campaigning the first time then moved right once elected. DiZoglio, who for the record won her first race via successful primary challenge, often voted to the left of Ives as I recall in her first term, though she came across as more conservative.
The GOP dominates: Of the 15 roll call votes, 11 were the result of a Republican initiative and 4 were the result of a Democratic initiative.
Progressive Mass. not thrilled with Dem. policies: Of the 4 roll call votes that Dems asked for (expecting “yes” votes on supposedly feel-good items), the Progressive Mass. position on 3 of them was a “no” vote.
Opacity the order of the day: Of the 1 roll-call vote that the Dems asked for and for which the Progressive Mass. position was a “yes” vote (repeal of the driver’s license suspension law, #15), a more telling story was the quiet acquiescence by House leadership to the threat of a GOP amendment.
In addition to their impressive compilation of all this info, the Progressive Mass. website does a nice job of explaining the many obstacles to understanding legislative goings-on.
What would be fun to have is the list of the 100 Reps who sent a letter to House leadership urging a compromise on the solar energy bill that would be closer to the Senate position, even though all but 2 of them voted for the House position (Roll-call #14).
The names are neatly typed on the signature pages of the petition.
(I am amused to see the last two names on a separate page, out of alphabetical order. I take that to mean they were late additions to push the total to the 1/2 the house line. Either that or they were out of town on the relevant day.)
Thanks.
According to the March 15 on-line edition of CommonWealth magazine
The 101 House signatures represents almost two thirds of the entire House, and yes, this is highly unusual.
http://commonwealthmagazine.org/environment/100-reps-break-ranks-on-solar/
…votes on enactment and engrossment would always be roll call, as well as for amendments. I’m OK with viva voce on procedural motions.
That would be about five thousand roll call vote annually, maybe more, and would shut down both chambers. Really bad idea.
Then maybe either enactment or engrossment, but not both, and maybe not home rule petitions or special laws, but only those that make part of the MGL (I’m not quite sure of the distinctions here so I admit to speculating a bit here.) I just think that accountability on major votes should be the default expectation, which would also take away specific requests for roll calls as a political weapon.
You earn credibility by making proposals based on even a modicum of investigation. You clearly shot from the hip, did not investigate your proposition until someone asked you to think about it, and you retreated to your newest position which is about 5% of your starting point.
Is this reality based commentary or the spitball version of politics? Volume of posts does not equal value.
Do you agree with christopher that “accountability on major votes should be the default expectation”? Some have observed that the example we’re discussing here happens all too often.
If you agree, do you have recommendations about how to address the issue?
As I made clear in my first response:
What do you think, that I am opposed accountability? LOL. Go back and look at my history here, easily done including a knock down I did on DeLeo this week that was rich in detail unlike Christopher’s post or your empty follow up.
As happens all too often here on BMG with the most prolific posters who also have no experience in real politics, one of the other prolific posters comes rushing to blame the person who delivers facts against bloggage by the word. Congrats to you for fulfilling your role.
Please reread my post. I didn’t “blame” anybody, I asked you two simple questions. Perhaps if you simply answered a neutral question, rather than attempting to read my mind, we might be able to converse more courteously.
Do you have recommendations about how to increase transparency in the legislature?
STom, tell us what you think is the way. I spent a half century trying to hold the legislature and governments accountable and I never met you in the State House or in a public forum on this issue. After I refuted Christopher’s bogus comment, you responded by challenging me again without a scintilla of information.
I thought I made it clear with my snarky question to you asking if you think I oppose accountability in the legislature but since that seems beyond your grasp, I repeat that I have spent a half century working 60 hours weeks for democratic accountability in government and never met either you or Christopher doing any work, just blogging based upon what you read.
So I throw your own question back at you. Tell us what you would do. But remember that I have lived and breathed this for a lifetime and I will destroy any simple and stupid answers you might offer. Bring it.
You’ve persuaded me that you have far more experience than me.
I’d like the House to be more transparent. It appears that we agree about that. I don’t have a clue about how to accomplish that. It seems clear you feel that christopher’s suggestion will not work.
Since I don’t know, and apparently christopher doesn’t know, I’m asking if you have recommendations. Sincerely — no snark from me. I think it’s a problem, I think it’s a problem I’d like us to solve, and I don’t know where to even begin.
What I really don’t get is your hostility. I have nothing to “bring”, I’m in no way attempting to fight or argue with you. I’m genuinely interested in what you think should be done next.
…part of which was interning in the State House, during which time there were hardly enough substantive votes per day or week to come close to 5000 per year.
…is belittle other people or their ideas. I might debate them, but I’m fairly certain I have a pretty solid reputation around here for not calling even our differently-winged trolls stupid or their ideas foolish. I find people more credible when they don’t come across as know-it-alls or put people down in the process of explaining any error.
You, like nearly all prolific posters (myself included!), do occasionally cross that line. That written, I’m with you on this one. TBD would get more flies on this thread with honey than vinegar.
…to chat and shoot the breeze. No, I do not do extensive research before verbalizing a thought. I’d go back to school if I wanted to do that. If my first idea doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, it’s fine for you to say so, but then I will say OK, then what about this? One might also call it thinking out loud, which I don’t see anything wrong with on a blog.
Three if you include Jerald Parisella of Beverly.