16 No Show Reps Seek Re-Election

This information is offered in the hopes that statewide media, as a public service to voters, will pick up on it prior to the November 6 election

For the 400 State Representatives in New Hampshire, the average attendance for 2012 was 82 percent, not all that bad, a solid B- in school house grading terms.  The only way we can determine this is by roll call votes, and there were plenty of them, so no one can claim that he or she missed a day or two (or left early from time to time) thus driving his or her score down.

The average Rep was present for 237 of 289 votes.

When a lobbyist last week asked me what I would consider an acceptable level of attendance, I replied that we should use the A, B, C, D, F grading system.  By that standard, anything below 60 would be unacceptable, but being in a generous mood, I decided to set 50 percent as a standard.

I then went through the list of all 400 Reps.  After removing anyone not running for re-election (after all, they've already decided that they don't have the time to serve again), I came up with 16 what must be deemed the WORST OF THE WORST, Reps who, despite terrible attendance, decided that they should run again.  11 were Republicans, 5 Democrats, not that far out of line statistically since Republicans had 298 Reps and Democrats only 102 after the 2010 election.

What does stand out as a glaring statistical deviation is the dereliction of Manchester Democrats.  Four of the five No Show Democrats are from Manchester.  In fact, two of them fall not merely below 25 percent but below 25 percent!  No Manchester Republican seeking re-election falls below 50 percent.

Dover, Nashua, and Londonderry each had two Reps below 50 percent yet running again.

I've placed an asterik next to two names since these two Reps could be legitimately excused by extended illnesses.  Let me know if I've missed anyone (or included someone who should not be.

Here they are from bottom to top. Some of them even managed to survive primary challenges.

*Jean Jeudy, D-Manchester--67 votes made--ONLY 23.1%

 Jeff Oligny, R-Hampstead--68 votes made--ONLY 23.4 %

Tom Katsiantonis, D-Manchester--69 votes made--ONLY 23.8 %

Tim Hogan, R-Nashua--70 votes made--ONLY 24.1 percent

Pat Garrity, D-Manchester--91 votes made-- 31.4%

*Susan Emerson--R, Rindge--104 votes made- 35.9%

Bruce Markus, R-Peterborough--118 votes made--40.7%

Dorothea Hooper, D-Dover--127 votes made--43.8 %

Dan Tamburello, R-Londonderry, 128 votes made--44.1%

Jon Richardson, R-Allenstown--131 votes made--45.2%

Michael Weededn, R-Dover--132 votes made--45.5%

Peter Ramse, D-Manchester--133 votes made--45.9%

Michele Rocklin, R-North Hampton--134 votes made--46.2%

Fred Leonard, R-Rochester--136 votes made--46.9%

David Lundgren, R-Londonderry--143 votes made--49.3%

James Summers, R-Nashua, 144 votes made--49.8%

 Numbers speak for themselves; no editorial comment is necessary...except to mention that one of the derelict No Show Reps has been chosen by Speaker Bill O'Brien to serve on his re-election committee. In other words, No Shows Reps for Bill.  Any idea which one????

 

Comments

[Rep Dan McGuire]

One of the things I like best about the New Hampshire House is that with 400 members, there are people from different walks of life with different experiences. A number of Reps on this list, such as Carol's running mate in Allenstown, Jon Richardson, are young people with jobs and families, who can't get to Concord as often as they would like. I think the House is better off with them that kind of perspective than without it.

You are right about Susan Emerson's illness. She was out with several major surgeries. I was surprised that she made it in as much as she did.

[Errol]

Wouldn't a more relevant, useful, and telling metric be had by averaging their 2 year roll call vote numbers?

[Rep Steve Vaillancourt]

You could take the two years...in fact I've done that in another exercise, but the results are about the same. It's not as if someone is going to have a great attendance one year and then fall to 30 percent the next year. Just like with HRA scores. My score the second year was not as high as the first year, but it wasn't all that much different. The HRA has only used the two year combined numbers in its report, so that is readily available. If you have such data for two year attendance free to post it here. In almost every case, you'll find very little differnce because the survey is so large.
I actually like Jon Richardson a great deal and would prefer to see him re-elected, but when you run a screen of numbers as I did here, you can't start making excuses for everyone. Susan, for example, was angry at me for mentioning her...but I did in fact give her a pass. A Democrat writes me saying that Hooper from Dover deserves a
medical pass as well.
Oh yes, the answer to the question posed at the end is Tamburello. Just the facts, maam, just the facts!

[Errol]

You could just average the 2 years for the low 16...it would give them the benefit of the doubt. Did any of them have two totally different years?