Let’s Talk about TransparencyHappy Sunshine Week!
Sunshine Week is a nonpartisan collaboration among groups in the journalism, civic, education, government, and private sectors that shines a light on the importance of public records and open government.
Sunshine Week celebrates a radical concept: that you deserve to know what your elected officials are doing.
In other words, what could be a better week to talk about the push for State House Transparency and our Scorecard Website?
Tomorrow, the three state representatives and three state senators who will negotiate a final set of Joint Rules for the legislative session will meet for the first time. There’s a lot at stake (they haven’t come to a deal in several sessions), including whether committee votes and testimony will finally be posted, whether we will see more timely advancement of legislation, and much more. Read on for what you can do to take action.
And *drumroll please* our Scorecard Website is now up to date with full data from last session as well as co-sponsorship data from this session. Want to know if your legislators are co-sponsoring the bills on our Legislative Agenda. We’ve got you covered.
The Fight for State House Transparency Continues
In February, both the House and Senate adopted a series of transparency reforms to make a more open, inclusive, and timely legislative process. They did not go as far as they could have, but the fact that they went as far as they did was only possible because of people like you who emailed, called, and met with your legislators.
But the fight isn’t over yet. The House and Senate have to negotiate the differences between their respective proposals for Joint Rules.
A six-person conference committee was just appointed to oversee these negotiations:
- Sen. Cindy Creem (D-Newton)
- Sen. Joan Lovely (D-Salem)
- Sen. Ryan Fattman (R-Sutton)
- Rep. Mike Moran (D-Brighton)
- Rep. Bill Galvin (D-Canton)
- Rep. David Muradian (R-Grafton)
In recent sessions, these conference committees have stalemated. But this session can and must be different. Legislators have felt the pressure from the public that voters across the commonwealth want to see these changes. Let’s keep up the momentum, get this done, and then get to the important work across so many urgent issues facing the Commonwealth.
We recently sent a letter with Act on Mass and Progressive Democrats of Massachusetts in support of critical transparency reforms. Now it’s your turn:
Email the Conference Committee
Last Session’s Votes…And This Session’s Co-Sponsorships
Our scorecard website is now up to date with our full data from the 2023-2024 legislative session.
The most striking thing about last session’s recorded votes in the State House? How few of them there were.
Last session saw only 203 votes in the MA House and 252 in the MA Senate, each approximately 50% below average and part of an ongoing decline. That’s bad for accountability. When all of the discussion and debate happens behind closed doors, voters are less aware of where their legislators really stand.
And not each of these recorded votes will be worth scoring: many are low-stakes votes where everyone agrees.
To account for the scarcity of votes last session—especially ones that were beyond unanimous or party-line—we included a few additional data points:
- Whether your state legislators are visiting prisons and jails to serve as a force for accountability in the conditions there
- Whether your legislators are holding office hours and town halls to engage constituents
- Whether your legislators are co-sponsoring the bills that we are tracking on our Scorecard website
For the first two, we did our best to reach out to legislative offices to get information. If we’re missing something, just let us know.
But headed into the new session, our Scorecard website also has other important information: Co-Sponsorship. We’ll be tracking which legislators are co-sponsoring the bills on our Legislative Agenda. That’s a critical tool for you to be able to apply effective pressure — as well as to give credit to the legislators who are fighting the good fight.
