The Record in Numbers

Every number on this page is counted from the General Court's own record when the site is built, not typed in. Each section says what it counts and over what period. Where the record on this site cannot answer something, the section says so rather than estimating.

Every House and Senate bill given a number in each term, not counting constitutional amendments or resolutions, by the word its card on this site shows. Died covers a bill killed on the floor, left on the table, vetoed with the veto standing, lost between the two chambers, or still pending when its term ended; Other is a bill withdrawn, never introduced, or still before the legislature.

The House and Senate bills whose prime sponsor sat in each chamber, divided by its seats: 400 in the House, 24 in the Senate. Passed means the bill became law.

For each committee of the last ten terms: how many bills its chamber sent it first, as each bill's page names its committee, and how many it received after another committee of the same chamber had them — most often Finance or Ways and Means, for a bill that spends or raises money. Every numbered measure counts, resolutions included.

Anyone may use the House's online form to say they support or oppose a bill, or are neutral on it, at its committee hearing. These are the twenty hearings with the most of those sign-ins in the 2025–2026 term: one bill on one House committee date, with the title it had when it was heard. A sign-in is a position registered, not a vote and not a person counted: one person may sign in on many bills, nobody is sampled, and an organized appeal can bring thousands. The busiest hearings were seldom closely divided: 17 of these 20 drew nine in ten sign-ins or more on one side, and 15 drew more against the bill than for it. So the tables show where turnout was largest, not where opinion was split, and not what the committee decided. Senate hearings are not on this form.

In the 2025–2026 term, a committee's recommendation was followed by the chamber far more often than not. Counted here: each bill's committee report in each chamber, against the first motion adopted on that chamber's floor that decided the bill there — ought to pass, inexpedient to legislate or indefinite postponement, or interim study.

A committee sends a report to the consent calendar by its own vote, and in both chambers that vote must be unanimous, though the recommendation itself may have been carried on a divided one. The whole calendar is adopted in one vote without debate, and what it adopts is each committee's recommendation, to pass the bill, to kill it, or to send it to interim study, unless the bill is first taken off — since January 2023 at the request of ten members in the House, and since April 2026 of two in the Senate. For each committee of 2025–2026 with ten reports or more: the share that went on the consent calendar and stayed there — a measure of how often the committee agreed with itself. A report counts to the committee that made it, so a bill sent on to Finance or Ways and Means counts in both, and a report the docket prints twice counts once.

In 2025–2026, 2,187 of 3,593 committee recommendations (60.9%) were adopted on the consent calendar, and 1,406 went to the regular calendar, 201 of them after being taken off consent.

House Committees

57.7% of the House’s 2,149 committee recommendations were adopted on its consent calendar; 48 were taken off it.

Senate Committees

65.6% of the Senate’s 1,444 committee recommendations were adopted on its consent calendar; 153 were taken off it.

Of the House and Senate bills a committee reported on in 2025–2026, whatever it recommended, the share that passed both chambers and the share that became law. A bill two committees of a chamber reported on counts in both; committees with ten bills or more. A Senate committee's House bills had already passed the House, and the other way round, so compare committees within a chamber rather than across.

In 2025–2026, of the 1,942 bills a House committee reported on, 35.3% passed both chambers; of the 1,247 bills a Senate committee reported on, 54.7% passed both chambers.

Every House and Senate bill that passed both chambers in the same text and so went to the governor. Amended: either chamber adopted an amendment to it first, or a committee of conference settled the two chambers' versions; the Enrolled Bills Committee's technical corrections after passage are not counted as amendments.

The same bills, by the number of amendments the two chambers adopted to each before it went to the governor: an amendment withdrawn or defeated after its adoption does not count, nor does a committee of conference's report. From 2007 every adoption the docket records carries the amendment's number. Before 1999 it rarely does, and each amendment a line names counts once, so three or more is the figure there to read with care.

Every recorded floor decision, by year and by how it was decided: a roll call records each member by name, a division records the count, and a voice vote records only which side sounded louder.

The ten roll calls on bills decided by the fewest votes, procedural motions and votes that needed more than a majority left out.

For each day a chamber took at least one roll call, the share of its members in office who were there for at least one of that day's roll calls — voting, presiding, or declaring a conflict of interest — averaged over the days. Members' ballots are on record from 1999, and a day with only voice or division votes records no one by name, so it cannot be counted.

Of the bills and joint resolutions that reached the governor in each of the last ten terms, how many were vetoed, and what became of the veto. A bill that became law without a signature reached the governor and was not vetoed. A veto stood when the override failed or no override vote came before the session ended.

A constitutional amendment that passes both chambers by three fifths goes to the voters at the next general election, and is ratified only with two thirds of the votes cast on it (Part Second, Article 100); a blank ballot is not a vote cast on it. Yes and No are the Secretary of State's statewide count, printed where the Source column says. 5 of the 17 below were ratified. CACR 13 of 2025–2026 goes to the voters on Nov 3, 2026.