MASSPIRG's State Legislative Report

2005-2006 Session

Download the full report. (PDF, 169 KB)

Summary
MASSPIRG is the state’s leading advocate for the public interest. Each legislative session, we push for passage of a range of public interest bills and work to defeat measures that will harm the environment or consumers. This report indicates how senators and representatives stand on some important public interest bills. Unfortunately, the legislature only votes on a fraction of bills filed every session, and many important issues are left languishing. This report includes roll call votes when available. But for three bills on which there was no vote, (preventing identity theft, stopping global warming, and protecting our Boston Harbor Islands) we indicated whether lawmakers cosponsored or endorsed those bills. All three issues will be among MASSPIRG’s top priorities for the 2007-08 session.

Each legislator in this report earns a score. The score represents the number of times the lawmaker voted in support of the public interest position combined with the number of our three priority issues they cosponsored or endorsed. The Senate has eight items which we scored, and the House has nine.