There were no roll call votes in the House or Senate last week. This week, Beacon Hill Roll Call reports on local senators’ roll call attendance records for the 2025 session through Aug. 22.

The Senate has held 68 roll calls so far in the 2025 session. Beacon Hill Roll Call tabulates the number of roll calls on which each senator voted 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.

Senate rules allow a senator, who is not physically at the session in the Senate chamber, to vote remotely from any location and without giving a reason for his or her absence from the Senate chamber. The House does not permit remote voting.

Sometimes a senator is not able to attend only one or two sessions during which roll calls are held, but since there are sometimes multiple roll calls on each one of those days, the number of roll calls they missed can be high even though they only missed one or two sessions.

Thirty-six (90%) out of 40 senators did not miss any roll call votes and had a 100% roll call attendance record.

Four (10%) out of 40 senators missed one or more roll call votes.

The senator who missed the most roll calls is Sen. Lydia Edwards, D-Boston, who missed 23 roll calls (66.1% roll call attendance record.) Edwards did not respond to repeated requests from Beacon Hill Roll Call asking her why she missed so many roll call votes.

Two other senators who missed one or more roll call votes are Sens. Mike Barrett, D-Lexington, who missed two roll calls (97.0% roll call attendance record) and Adam Gomez, D-Springfield, who missed one roll call (98.5% roll call attendance record.) Neither one responded to repeated requests from Beacon Hill Roll Call asking them why they missed any roll call votes.

It is a Senate tradition that the Senate president only votes occasionally. Current Senate President Karen Spilka follows that tradition and only voted on 18 (26.5%) of the 68 roll calls while not voting on 50 (73.5%) of them.

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% (0)
  • Sen. Paul Mark — 100% (0)

Also up on Beacon Hill

Alcohol licenses (H 4285)

The House gave initial approval to a bill that would make changes to some of the state’s alcohol permitting laws.

The measure would authorize on-premises alcoholic beverage consumption within certain noncontiguous area licensed premises, subject to approval by the Alcoholic Beverages Control Commission (ABCC). Current law prohibits this licensing unless the areas are contiguous.

The measure would also repeal the law that prohibits any applicant who has been convicted of a federal or state narcotic drugs charge from holding an on-premises alcoholic beverages consumption license, as well as the current restriction prohibiting any applicant who has been convicted of a felony from holding an off-premises alcoholic beverages consumption license. Those prohibitions would be replaced by a new law requiring that applicants for any license be of satisfactory character to local and state licensing authorities.

“This bill is an important step toward updating outdated alcohol laws to reflect today’s business landscape,” said sponsor State Treasurer Deb Goldberg. “By removing unnecessary restrictions and improving oversight, it supports economic growth in our communities while maintaining strong oversight and prioritizing public safety.”

Rep. Christopher Worrell, D-Boston, who also sponsored a similar bill, did not respond to repeated requests from Beacon Hill Roll Call asking him to comment on the bill.

Supporters said allowing areas to be noncontiguous mainly impacts outdoor seating and patios. They noted that licensees who have patios that are separated by a sidewalk or a road, under current law, have to go through extra steps to extend their license to that area. They said the change would simplify that process.

They also said that for on-premise and off-premise licenses, the rules around criminal record are currently inconsistent. They noted that having any felony conviction disqualifies an applicant from holding an off-premise license, but for on-premise licenses, only narcotics-related charges disqualify an applicant.

They argued that the bill would allow local licensing authorities and the ABCC to standardize this process and evaluate an applicant’s criminal record more holistically. They cited cases in which an applicant was charged decades ago and has had zero issues since then. They noted that all applicants would still have a CORI (Criminal Offender Record Information) check and be subject to consideration of their character and fitness.

Liquor license suspension (H 4275)

Current law suspends the liquor license of and closes down for a period of time any package store that is found guilty of selling to a minor or an intoxicated individual. However, in big box stores, supermarkets, gas stations and other places in which liquor sales are not their primary business, a violation results only in the closing of the liquor department.

A bill, sponsored by Rep. Steven Howitt, R-Seekonk, and given initial approval by the House, would amend current law so that the entire establishment, not just the liquor department, would be closed down.

“This bill levels the playing field between small family-owned liquor stores and large corporate big box stores selling liquor,” Howitt said. “It will serve to tighten up the oversight for alcohol sales.”

Howitt continued, “This bill was filed to strengthen public safety in our cities and towns because illegal alcohol sales have been on the rise due to relaxed regulations during and resulting from the pandemic. The bill also fixes an inadvertent disparity that has developed by reinstating uniform consequences and standards for all establishments licensed to sell alcoholic beverages who willfully violate important public safety regulations regarding alcohol sales to minors or intoxicated individuals. All retailers of alcoholic beverages will be treated equally regardless of whether the establishment is a supermarket, convenience store or package store.

Fortune tellers (H 475)

The House gave initial approval to legislation that would eliminate the current state law requiring that all fortune-telling applicants have lived in the city or town in which they are seeking their license to practice for at least one continuous year prior to filing their application.

Supporters said the bill would remove an old law that has become antiquated and makes no sense.

“A municipal employee reached out to me several years back because she had discovered the residency requirement and thought it was a little odd,” said sponsor Rep. Susannah Whipps, I-Athol. “A coffee shop in her city was looking to have a tarot card reader, and as it turns out, fortunetellers must be licensed in Massachusetts just as a barber or hairdresser would be, and also the law requires residency in the community in which they practice. My bill removes the one-year residency requirement. This law was most likely put in place to prevent grifters or con artists from coming into a town and scamming people.”

Prohibit grocery stores from using biometrics to increase prices or suggest items (H 99)

The House gave initial approval to a measure that would prohibit grocery stores from suggesting items or adjusting the prices of any item directly or indirectly based on the biometric data of individuals collected on the premises of a grocery store. Grocery stores would be allowed to use biometrics to allow customers to voluntarily verify their identity at the point of sale. Violations by a grocery store would result in the store being fined for the amount of actual damages or $5,000, whichever is higher.

According to SupermarketNews.com, the biometrics can often involve the scanning of customer fingerprints or retinas.

“I filed this bill after learning that the largest grocery store chain in the U.S. is rolling out facial recognition technology and electronic price tags,” said sponsor Rep. Lindsay Sabadosa, D-Northampton. “These technologies, when put together, allow grocery stores to identify individual customers, their characteristics like race and gender and shopping habits. It has been shown time and time again that pricing algorithms are designed to take more money out of consumer pockets, and there is no place for this at the grocery store.”

In April at a public hearing, Woodrow Hartzog, a professor at Boston University’s School of Law, told the Committee on Advanced Information Technology, the Internet and Cybersecurity that surveillance pricing allows companies to figure out the highest price that customers are willing to pay.

“This disastrous practice leads to price gouging, discrimination by proxy, an inability to budget, data hoarding and the suffocating feeling that every choice you make while shopping is a trap,” Hartzog said. “This bill would prohibit food stores from using tools like facial recognition to charge people different prices and provide vital breathing room for customers, while still allowing for people to receive discounts.”

At the April hearing, Edgar Dworsky, a former assistant attorney general in consumer protection, questioned legislators’ concerns over surveillance pricing.

He suggested that supermarkets would likely use expanded personal data to offer targeted discounts to shoppers — rather than hitting them with steeper prices.

“That would echo how supermarkets have used data gathered from loyalty programs to offer personalized discounts,” Dworsky wrote in written testimony.

“Your bill, however, would prevent stores from using any biometric data collected to offer lower prices to identified shoppers,” continued Dworsky, who is also founder of Consumer World. “That strikes me as anti-consumer. If you are not banning the collection of biometric data to start with, why not simply prevent its use for the purpose of imposing higher than the standard or established price?”

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Massachusetts said it supports the legislation but wants the protections to be expanded to all goods, not just food.

“Prohibit surveillance-pricing generally, not just pricing driven by biometric surveillance,” the ACLU suggested in written testimony. “Charging different customers different prices for the same product based on a personal profile is problematic whether that profile is derived from a person’s biometrics or other personal data.”