Ghost Voting: Mass. Isn't Alone!

You may recall that the practice of legislative "ghost voting" got some bad press around here recently. In April, Burlington representative (and one-time DLC '100 To Watch' honoree!) Chares A. Murphy cast a series of votes in the House chamber when he was physically on the Virgin Islands. (Speaker DiMasi is getting to the bottom of that, right?)

Well, California -- that copy-cat gay-marrying state -- just got caught copying our sneaky tactic -- and then claiming that they've been doing it for decades.

But now it looks like the Mass. House might have stolen the idea from -- horror of horrors -- the backwater, Bush-loving, Tom DeLay red-staters of Texas. As it turns out, they're a little less subtle about it down in the Lone Star State (or the Austin media is more savvy): check out this KEYE-TV special report with video footage of legislators traipsing around, pushing vote buttons willy-nilly.