THE HOUSE AND SENATE. There were no roll call votes in the House or Senate last week. Beacon Hill Roll Call reports local senators’ roll call attendance record for the 2013 session through August 30.
The Senate has held 183 roll call votes so far in 2013. Beacon Hill Roll Call tabulates the number of roll calls on which each senator was present and voting 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.
Only 17 of the Senate’s 40 members have 100 percent roll call attendance records.
Sen. Michael Barrett 100 percent (0), Sen. Kenneth Donnelly 96.7 percent (6), Sen. Eileen Donoghue 100 percent (0), Sen. James Eldridge 99.5 percent (1), Sen. Barry Finegold 99.5 percent (1), Sen. Jennifer Flanagan 97.3 percent (5), Sen. Bruce Tarr 100 percent (0).
Let’s be honest, the importance of perfect attendance totally depends on where you are in life.
Grade School/Middle School? Well, that one is on your parents. If you had perfect attendance in grade school, someone needs to pull your parents aside and tell them to quit hot-dog’n it. It takes me 45 precious morning minutes to convince my 3 year old that it’s a good move to give the potty a try. And we’re just talking pre-school here.
HighSchool? There’s no reason for it. If there wasn’t a test, project, or fist fight that was worth ducking, then you obviously weren’t trying hard enough. Plain and simple.
(*)Also, this blog will not recognize any claims of perfect attendance during Coach Nelson’s tenure at LHS. That’s like the steroid of era for perfect attendance.
College? You suck.
Professional life? Obviously you shouldn’t have perfect attendance. Sick days are there to let your co-workers and boss know exactly how much you do around the office. The goal should be to work just hard enough to ultimately get to the point where perfect attendance is defined by your little icon in the home office occasionally showing “active” status.
Voting Record? There’s only two reasons to never miss an election. One is the Reilly School Bake Sale. The other is to be the a-hole that wears those “I voted” stickers.
As for elected officials actually showing up to vote? I’d say perfect attendance just feels right. I see strength in people who can party like Miley Cyrus on a weeknight, and still make it in the next day to cast a vote for something that probably wasn’t worth the drive into Boston. (Please note how I painstakingly avoided using the “work hard, play hard” catch-all. I’d like to invite anyone who’s used “work hard, play hard” with a straight face on a Spirit of Boston cruise so I can scuttle the vessel mid harbor.)
But what do I know? I’m the guy that weighs about 92% of my votes on how pleasing the color pallet is on your campaign sign. The other 8% is obviously physical appearance.
Sons of Franky Cabot 
Those “I voted” people make voting lame.
Then when they elect Obama, it makes it even lamer.
Maybe Obama wouldn’t have been elected if you showed up to vote.
It was a joke Christie, jeez.
I guess perfect attendance is important if you like the way they vote. I prefer they miss a few.
Also, I don’t thing I would’ve passed senior year without Coach Nelson. Lets just say I missed a lot of home rooms.
There better be a lot of red bull and daft punk on that cruise….otherwise, the work hard play hard crowd will still be in line at the IceBar.