Blue Mass Group

Reality-based commentary on politics.

Comments

  1. It seems to me the matters under discussion in these conference committees are pretty important. The meetings should be open, preferably webcast live with audio and video (at least audio, so there is a publicly available record). If the legislators want to cut private deals they are too embarrassed to discuss in public, they can arrange those on their own.

    • It’s more so they can keep the room empty of influential lobbyists, gangs of uniformed staties, and other people who can influence the discussion without saying a word.

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      p>Can you imagine how these committees would turn out if Bob Traviglini or Robert Haynes were sitting right behind the conferees?

      • and other special interests aren’t sitting right behind them?  Being a PLEO just ain’t what it used to be.

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        p>While we’re on the subject, why does labor get a PLEO spot and not GLBT, various minority groups, environment?  Does anyone else out there have a problem with this issue?

  2. The residents of Massachusetts should have the right to be part of the meetings either by attending when logistically possible or by listening remotely.  These particular four reforms will have very significant consequences in the short and long term socioeconomic future of all residents of the state and therefore should be taken seriously by all.  The ethics and transparency reform bill is on the table but in the meantime we are not able to listen our legislators’ discussions regarding this bill.  We, the residents of the Commonwealth, need to keep promoting a more civically engaged society that promotes  more transparency in the decisions that government makes on our behalf.  Opening these meetings would be a small step in restoring the confidence that people have in government and the way it conducts business for us all.

  3. I’m involved in local politics, and sit/have sat on a number of boards and committees, often small-time stuff.  We’ve always taken the open meeting law quite seriously, ensuring that we’re meeting in public place, with sufficient public notice, agenda, minutes, yadda yadda.  It’s important.

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    p>But, there are times when it’s just efficient to come together and get stuff done.  Horse trade.  Try out different hypotheses and ideas without fear of the public “reading into them.”

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    p>The Open Meeting Law allows for “executive session” for a variety of different specific reasons.  In my opinion, a conference committee — where negotiations are taking place, often across multiple meetings — is a place where the concept of “executive session” maps quite nicely.

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    p>P.S. Yes I know the Open Meeting Law isn’t the legal code in question; it’s just a “mapping” for the sake of discussion.

    • But, there are times when it’s just efficient to come together and get stuff done.  Horse trade.

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      p> Efficiency is a principle of mechanics and engineering used to manage finite resources like energy and work in order to quantify a relationship of input to output.  However, politics is not mechanics nor engineering: there are no pre-defined functions that will automagically derive a given output. Nor should there be.  Nor is speediness of process to be confused with efficiency…  The quickest way is not often the most efficient, nor the least costly…

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      p>Nor is politics beset by finiteness of resources: citizenry  and deliberation are infinite resources and can only be curtailed, IMHO, by a certain type of inertia brought about by a desire to speed the process up. .

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      p>All this is to say that politics and policy is hard work that doesn’t ‘map’ cleanly to anything like ‘efficiency’.   If asked to put a value on ‘efficiency’ I would weigh it very very lightly, so that it never becomes the one item that can tip the scales one way or the other. Not ever.

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      p>Yes, the open process is the slowest and most unwieldy of processes. This is how it ought to be.  Embrace it.

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      p>

      • Nor is politics beset by finiteness of resources: citizenry  and deliberation are infinite resources and can only be curtailed, IMHO, by a certain type of inertia brought about by a desire to speed the process up. .

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        p>We’re talking about legislators in conference.  They do have a finite resource — time.  The conference is essentially a negotiation, and there are all sorts of reasons why negotiations are often done in secret.  Furthermore, efficiency is also embraced by fields like economics; some economists work on negotiation, few engineers do.

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        p>To suggest that efficiency isn’t a legitimate concern in process is nonsense; so long as time flies like an arrow*, processes which create good results quickly will always be valued.

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        p>

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        p>fruit flies like a banana.

        • … I know there’s no such a thing as a sanity clause.

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          p>

          To suggest that efficiency isn’t a legitimate concern in process is nonsense; so long as time flies like an arrow*, processes which create good results quickly will always be valued.

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          p>Now your arguing for results?  Hmm. Before you wrote “horse trade” and “try out different” options without qualifying them…

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          p>So which is it?  Do you want “horse trades” or do you want “good horse trades”, ’cause anybody can trade a horse for a heap o’ manure in under a minute…

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          p>Under an wide open deliberative system such as I advocate, quick can happen but it is never, ever, the deciding factor. “Let’s get this over with,” is not a good rallying cry…

  4. I am a staunch advocate for conference meetings being held in the public eye.  However, I am realistic enough to know that it would not stop the “horse trading” and “behind closed doors deals”.  It would be welcome progress to have a discussion on the double standards between state and local government.

  5. I’d encourage all BMG readers to place themselves in the legislators shoes.

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    p>Imagine you’re at work trying to collaborate on a project that will have major implications for your company. Now imagine there’s a reporter from the Boston Herald or Boston Globe sitting in on these meetings and he/she is going to run off and do a story on any remotely non-conventional idea that is thrown out there, no matter how unrealistic. “Company weighing X!”

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    p>Do you think that might impact how people in the meeting act or behave or think?

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    p>We absolutely should be encouraging transparency, but at some point I would argue extreme transparency can be counterproductive.

    • Imagine you’re at work trying to collaborate on a project that will have major implications for your company. Now imagine there’s a reporter from the Boston Herald or Boston Globe sitting in on these meetings and he/she is going to run off and do a story on any remotely non-conventional idea that is thrown out there, no matter how unrealistic. “Company weighing X!”

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      p>If the Globe or the Herald wish to act the compleat ass, they are free to do so. I am, likewise, free to laugh at their nonsense and at the people who take such nonsense seriously.  The commonwealth is not populated with sheeple, as you seem to think.

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      p>Reading a newspaper, any newspaper, or a blog for that matter, is an inherently intellectual endeavor: people are willfully engaging in the act of thinking.  Your premise, however, is that between the act of reaching for the paper and the actual reading of it, they shut down the very critical facilities they are seeking to engage. Hmm…

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      p>Unconventional ideas? I says “bring ’em on!”   We’ll all have a good laugh at the patently silly and a good think over the patently sensible.  Where else you gonna do it?

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      • Your premise, however, is that between the act of reaching for the paper and the actual reading of it, they shut down the very critical facilities they are seeking to engage.

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        p>Yes, that is actually exactly what im saying.

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        p>Why else has the Herald or Ch. 7 or Fox 25 stayed in business for so long?

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