Beacon Hill Roll Call; A sampling of how your elected officials voted.

COLUMN: BEACON HILL ROLL CALL

There were no roll call votes in the House or Senate during the week of Dec. 14 to 18. Beacon Hill Roll Call reports local representatives' final roll call attendance records for the 2009 session.

The House in 2009 held 274 roll call votes. Beacon Hill Roll Call tabulates the number of roll calls for which each representative was present and voting and then calculates that number as a percentage of the total roll call votes held. That percentage is the number commonly referred to as the roll call attendance record.

Several quorum roll calls, used to gather a majority of members onto the House floor to conduct business, are also included in the 274 roll calls. On quorum roll calls, members simply vote "present" in order to indicate their presence in the chamber. When a representative does not indicate his or her presence on a quorum roll call, we count that as a roll call absence just like any other roll call absence.

Only 21 percent or 33 of the 160 House members have perfect 100 percent roll call attendance records - including 23 of the 144 Democrats and 10 of the 16 Republicans.

Some representatives may have poor attendance records because of a variety of reasons including health problems or military service. Beacon Hill Roll Call does not ask each individual representative why he or she missed roll call votes.

The five worst roll call attendance records belong to Reps. David Flynn (D-Bridgewater), who missed 88 roll calls (67.8 percent attendance record); Harold Naughton Jr. (D-Clinton) missed 48 roll calls (82.4 percent attendance record) due to military service; Geraldine Creedon (D-Brockton) and Daniel Bosley (D-North Adams) missed 46 roll calls (83.2 percent attendance record); Cheryl Coakley-Rivera (D-Springfield) missed 45 roll calls (83.5 percent attendance record); and Colleen Garry (D-Dracut) and William Lantigua (D-Lawrence) missed 44 roll calls (83.9 percent attendance record). Lantigua is also the mayor-elect of Lawrence and has created controversy by stating that he will keep his job as state representative even after he is sworn in as mayor in January.

Local Representatives' Final 2009 Roll Call Attendance Records

The percentage listed next to the representative's name is the percentage of roll call votes for which the representative was present and voting. The number in parentheses represents the number of roll calls that the representative missed.

Rep. Harold Naughton Jr. ... 82.4 % (48)

Rep...