There were no roll call votes in the House or Senate last week. This week, Beacon Hill Roll Call reports local senators’ roll call attendance records for the 2021 session through May 14.
The Senate has held 28 roll calls so far in 2021. Beacon Hill Roll Call tabulates the number of roll calls on which each senator votes and then calculates that number as a percentage of the total roll call votes held. That percentage is the number referred to as the roll call attendance record.
In the Senate, 39 of the 40 members did not miss any roll calls and have 100 percent roll call attendance records. It is a Senate tradition that the Senate president only votes occasionally. Senate President Karen Spilka follows that tradition and only voted on 11 of the 28 roll calls while not voting on 17 of them.
Sen. Spilka’s office did not respond to repeated requests by Beacon Hill Roll Call to comment on her voting record.
The vast majority of the 40 senators are not in the Senate chamber during a session because of the COVD-19 pandemic. Most are watching and listening to the session from their home, business or State House office and voting remotely. Senators’ votes are communicated to Senate officials during the session or prior to the session if senators are informed in advance that there will be a roll call vote.
If a member wants to speak on an issue under consideration, they do so on a separate “debate phone line” and their voice is then heard in the Senate chamber and by anyone watching the broadcast online.
The percentage listed next to the senator’s name is the percentage of roll call votes on which the senator voted. The number in parentheses represents the number of roll calls that he or she missed.
Sen. Joanne Comerford — 100 percent (0)
Sen. Anne Gobi — 100 percent (0)
Sen. Adam Hinds — 100 percent (0)
Gov. Charlie Baker announced that 53 faith-based organizations and houses of worship will receive a portion of $950,000 in grants to strengthen on-premises safety and security and to fund safety enhancements to protect attendees facing potential increased risk of violence.
The grants began in 2018 when Massachusetts established the Commonwealth Nonprofit Security Grant Program to allocate state funding to nonprofits selected through a competitive process managed by the Executive Office of Public Safety and Security. Since its inception, the program has provided about $3 million to 124 organizations.
“Our administration remains committed to ensuring that all of the commonwealth’s residents can worship freely and safely,” Baker said. “These grants help equip houses of worship with additional tools to keep the faith communities they serve safe.”
“Security, preparedness, and emergency management depend on all of us working together to protect public spaces,” said Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito. “The Commonwealth Nonprofit Security Grant Program delivers critical safety resources to nonprofit and faith-based organizations to support that ongoing effort.”
“Public safety professionals at the municipal, state and federal levels are deeply committed to working together for the safety of places of worship,” said Executive Office of Public Safety and Security Secretary Thomas Turco. “This program is one of many … initiatives that engages community leaders and empowers organizations across our 351 cities and towns to keep people safe while (they) carry out their unique, community-based missions of service.”
The Public Health Committee held a virtual hearing on legislation that would prohibit local boards of health from banning the sale of tobacco without a vote at Town Meeting or the vote of a city council.
“The local board of health should only be able to recommend a community-wide ban of such products to the community’s governing body, and not have the authority to make a local bylaw change themselves,” said the bill’s sponsor Rep. Paul Frost, R-Auburn. “This legislation came about after the town of Westminster with a three-person Board of Health voted to ban all tobacco sales in the community in 2014. One member changed his mind and it didn’t go through.”
Several proposals relating to COVID-19 and workers were aired at a virtual hearing of the Labor and Workforce Development Committee, including:
Extra compensation for paramedics, EMTs (S 1168): Increases retroactively the pay of paramedics and EMTs by 25 percent to March 11, 2020, the day the state of emergency for COVID-19 was declared by Gov. Baker.
“As the COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated, we rely on our first responders and health care workers to keep us safe, oftentimes requiring that they put their own well-being and health on the line to protect the public,” said sponsor Sen. Nick Collins, D-Boston. “This bill would be a meaningful and tangible way to compensate these brave women and men who faithfully and selflessly continue to serve the public through this unprecedented pandemic.”
Prohibit firing of employees who cannot work due to lack of child care (S 1207): Prohibits an employer from firing an employee who cannot physically report to work because to a lack of child care. Allows employers to require that these employees use paid time off including vacation, sick and personal time to offset their unavailability and requires that employers provide reasonable accommodations to employees lacking child care including telecommuting and flexible schedule arrangements. Another provision makes a terminated employee without child care who has exhausted all of his or her paid time off benefits eligible for unemployment benefits until 90 days following the termination of the March 10, 2020 state of emergency and requires that they then be entitled to return to their position.
“We have seen a mass exodus of women, many of whom shoulder the responsibility of child care, from the workforce during the past year.” said sponsor Sen. Adam Hinds, D-Pittsfield. “This legislation is critical to supporting women and closing a gap of inequity for those who are responsible for child care. Until child care is affordable and accessible for all, our workplaces must be accommodating to child caretakers.”
Health care workers and COVID-19 presumption (S 1194): Stipulates that any frontline health care worker who contracts COVID-19 acquired it at work and makes that individual eligible for workers’ compensation benefits. Also would prohibit employers from requiring health care workers to use their own sick time or other earned time to quarantine, treat or recover from COVID-19. Another provision requires the employer to allow the worker to return to their previous position at the end of their leave.
“Our health care system did a lot right during this pandemic,” said sponsor Sen. Paul Feeney, D-Foxborough. “But we cannot simply bury our heads in the sand and forget the many workers, especially our bedside nurses, who were exposed at work and who got sick and suffered just because they were doing their jobs. As a matter of policy, we should be doing everything we can to ensure that nurses who expertly perform their jobs in the most challenging of circumstances are not only celebrated and thanked but they are protected and kept safe.”