1) MORE EMPOWERING
The legislature needs to diffuse power from the hands of the few to the hands of the many. It should break up the monopoly on power and staff concentrated in leadership offices and in the Ways and Means Committee. It should actually abolish Ways and Means and do the following:
– Create a Budget Committee that looks at only one bill every year – the annual appropriations act. That’s it. Now, Ways and Means filters everything and essentially serves as a tool for leadership to determine what and whether a bill progresses and in what form. No longer. The Budget Committee would do the Budget but nothing else. Instead, they should also create;
– Powerful Joint Committees and greatly reduce their number. So instead of the 26 we have currently, reduce it to 10 and create subcommittees under those. These bigger and stronger committees would have the staff and capacity to do what Ways and Means does on every bill for their areas (scrutinizing and refashioning legislation), but instead of one committee doing this, you’d have 10. The chairs of the 10 major committees would still be appointed by leadership, but they would then be able to appoint their own sub-committees (with chairs) and structures. This would mean the patronage power of leadership was diminished and power shared more broadly with committee chairs and members – mucH more like it is done inthe U.S. Congress yet without seniority as the main determinant in who runs committees.
– And to ensure that proper fiscal oversight was maintained, which is a core function of Ways and Means, they should make the Committee on Bills in the Third Reading serve also a fiscal oversight committee – so that each bill is costed and that this cost is attached to the bill before it is debated in third reading. But, you would also put a deadline on bills in this committee (initiated by committee chairs) so they could not be held up interminably there. The committee would strictly attach a bill and make sure the measure is drafted correctly – not do policy.
2) MORE INNOVATIVE
The legislature lacks bandwidth. It has no research or analytical arm (as many other legislatures do) and thus its analysis and evidence gathering is weak and thus members are largely dependent on the interest groups with stakes in the legislation. Its needs to give itself some more intellectual capacity and emphasize the generation of knowledge. It should:
– Create a Legislative Research Service – like a mini-version of what Congress has, to support members with data and research and to issue descriptive neutral reports (that would be publicly available) on the big issues before Beacon Hill, etc…
– And as part of empowering members, I think each member should be granted a small Research Budget allowing them to contract out or commission research from local thinktanks/universities or support fact finding by themselves. Thus, members could seek the information they need to support their work – something that most can’t do now given they usually only have one underpaid staff member mostly working on constituent requests.
– I think the legislature should also consider creating a non-partisan civil service coterie for itself. Building a core group of professional aides that are not beholden to a particular member, but staff key committees (on rotation) and are really excellent at analysis and research would be useful. Too much staff (outside of Ways and Means) today is explicitly political and more interested in district concerns than in supporting the ideas and initiatives of members.
3) MORE DEMOCRATIC
As part of empowering members and sparking innovation the legislature should look to make decision-making more democratic, particularly in setting priorities.
– One idea may be to create Floating Select Committees. At the beginning of each session of the General Court, members could petition to create Select Committees that would look at specific areas of legislative interest. You could have a set number each year and the petitions with the most signatures would get approved and be given some staff and budget. As opposed to the big Joint Standing Committees, which would largely handle legislation, these Select Committees would conduct oversight, commission research, issues reports and make recommendations that could then be taken up as legislation by the Standing Committees. This would allow members to set the priorities for the session and would mean that as issues and challenges change and/or emerge, the legislature could adapt to this change by creating committees to address the new issues. Some of this is already done (the State Senate has a Committee on Global Warming) but this would allow members to take a more active role in setting the agenda. And you could also have the petitioners vote for a committee chair so that not only did the members get to choose their issues to look at, they also would choose the chair – making the chair more accountable to them and not to leadership.
– I also think that the control of basic administration should be stripped from leadership and made more democratic – as it is in the U.S. Congress. Room space, staff budgets, office budgets – all of it should not be in the hands of leadership (where it can be used as leverage to punish and reward) but given over to a neutral non-political chief administator to determine, maybe reporting to an Admin Committee of members.
4) MORE ACCOUNTABLE/TRANSPARENT
And Beacon Hill should do more to shine a light on itself. The legislature should:
– Turn the TV back on – get legislative sessions broadcast live all the time, important legislative hearings etc. The legislature should repartner with local public radio and TV stations and maybe NECN as well to get this done and provide more public access and information. Maybe it should even work with local cable access networks. It should also:
– Use the Web Better. The legislature’s website is pretty poor. Its simple, which is fine, but could be dramatically improved.
– Alongside this, the legislature should ensure that every bill reported from committee is accompanied by a summary in layman’s terms, and posted on the web, alongside with the vote in committee.
In Conclusion: These are just some ideas for changing the legislature. I’m sure there are many others, and maybe folks can respond to my ideas with their own. As far as whether these ideas are realistic, no doubt all this would cost money and expanding funding for the legislature when most people think its ineffective would be a tough sell. New staff and research capacity costs. Broadcasting costs. Etc… But I just think we shouldn’t be afraid to spend on our democracy and the legislature is far too important an institution to be run on a shoestring. Ultimately, if these reforms make it more democratic and allow it to better engage the public and make policy better, than the investment will pay off in the long-term.
I also admit that even if such reforms were enacted, the legislature would still be messy and subject to the same pressures it is today. Leadership would still be critical and powerful. But, by diffusing power through the body, breaking up the monopoly on resources, staff and patronage in the hands of leadership – I think the institution would better use the wealth of talent at its disposal and be more open to ideas and innovation. Its a full time legislature but is not very professional. It should become so, thereby justifying its full time schedule.
We have always prided ourselves in Massachusetts for our innovations (whether political, scientific or cultural) and ability to adapt to change. Our legislature should no longer lag but should lead
by example in facilitating a creative democratic society for today’s world. One can only hope.
But the elephant in the room is that there is no elephant in the room. Look, I’m a big-D Democrat, and I’m glad that most voters in Massachusetts are big-D Democrats or else vote Democratic when it comes to the national government. But the lack of accountability that comes from a one-party system is painfull obvious. The power struggles, ideological battles, and policymaking debates in the Commonwealth take place within a single political party, which means to a large extent that they take place behind closed doors.
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p>Lots of folks criticize Republicans such as Senator Collins or Senator Chafee for being wishy-washy, spineless, etc. But the fact of the matter is that the Commonwealth needs a Republican party that is enough of a big tent to appeal to those in the middle of our policital spectrum–who don’t necessarily much resemble those in the middle of the nation’s political spectrum.
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p>So here’s to the future health of the Massachusetts Republican party. May they hold a respectable minority of seats, and no more than that!
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p>TedF
We need an opposition party for sure.
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p>A one-party state is really a no-party state, run by strongmen (or women) and factions.
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p>But why the elephant? If you are going to dream, dream big.
are even less viable than the Republicans.
I think it is undeniable that the utter dominance of our beloved Democratic Party in the legislature contributes to a lack of debate and discourse there and is part of what makes the legislature the way it is. But save rooting for a Republican resurgence, I think the institution needs to empower all its members, regardless of party and break up the leadership monopoly on power.
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p>As it stands now, with no effective challenge from an opposition, and no incentive/political will for backbenchers to assert themselves, it is a fairly dire situation. I’d like to think that as a leadership race heats up in the House, some smart candidate would gravitate towards a reform agenda, although of course that would constrain them when they get in. Asking the institution to reform itself, without effective internal or external pressure, is a tough ask.
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There are really three parties in the House. Their is the Republican party which is the official minority and holds between a 1/4 anda 1/3 of all legislative seats. But within the supermajority there are two different Democratic parties.
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p>One is the party of the Finnerans, the DiMasis, and the Travaglinis. The party of ethnic old school pols, ward bosses, socially conservative but economically populist democrats that support wasting money on paying hacks and getting pork.
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p>Then their is the small progressive wing full of people like Warren Tolman, Jim Marzilli, etc. that actually are both socially liberal and fiscally conservative and support economically progressive ideas like universal health care. If we expand this wing, by challenging the DINOs (both cause their old and conservative) we can get a working majority between them and the Republicans to bypass the old school pols that have dominated Beacon Hill for fifty years.
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p>Also its time for those “Big D” democrat voters to stop being so blindly partisan. See if your local “big D” rep actually supports “small d” democracy, see if they support universal healthcare, marriage equality, etc. If they dont there is a good chance their Republican challenger might in fact be to the LEFT of them on those social issues.
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p>I would rather have a Bruce Tarr or Richard Tisei than a DiMasi or Donato any day of the week. So actually think before you vote down the D line.
18 out of the 160 house members are Repubs and 5 senators.
What we really need is a group of people to hold the Democrats accountable. Again, I say that change has to happen from the outside. The party doesn’t matter.
Anyone who claims that the problems with lack of democracy and transparency in the Legislature are centered in the House either (a) isn’t paying attention, or (b) is really complaining about something else. The Senate is much worse — but with every Democrat in leadership, and the Republicans dependent on the indulgence of the President to have any voice or role, we don’t hear any dissidents there.
Some may lament a situation, but solutions are there!
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p>Democrats need to stand -up!
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p>Representative Ted Speliotis of Danvers is a person of High character and integrity. He would make a great speaker, if someone clean like him would take the job.
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p>I may believe that Deval’s rhetoric doesn’t match his actions and Sal DiMasi provided some adult leadership on Beacon Hill, But the cost is becoming too great if everything is true.
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p>No representative should feel threatened and corruption is never okay.
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tone it down. It’s getting embarresing.
“Ernie Boch III”:
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p>Yes, I am a fan of Ted’s. But he is not me. I am a mere spectator.
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p>My point is that someone clean like Ted would make us proud as speaker, if we currently have a reason to be less than proud.
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p>I am not embarrassed to propose a solution. If only others had enough courage!
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won’t make it true. I hate to break it to you, but no one from Danvers is going to be elected Speaker. It’s just not going to happen. Boston, Worcester, Springfield, Lynn….
There’s a gazillion reps from Boston, Worcester and the like… the Senate is a different beast. Furthermore, Therese Murray may keep herself out of the limelight, but she’s far more powerful and effective than people think. I remember buying her “I’m not going to twist arms” in the marriage equality debate hook and sinker… boy, was I fooled.
Originally from Dorchester. She started out with 100 points when she arrived from all those people who would have given her zero points through out her whole career..
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p>These city kids have it all over the rest of the legislature. In their minds.
How could these or similar reforms could be pushed? Is there a block of legislators who would champion them?
The House needs to drastically weaken the power of the speaker and the chairs and end the charade of holding the votes that matter on blackberries. It also needs to show that it can cut earmarks to save the money for core missions, and it needs to do these things now.
though, I’m not sure I agree with all of them.
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p>I’d favor a larger core of researchers out there (though we do have some!), but I’m not so sure I’d favor giving each rep money to independently research material. We’d have too many Reps using it unwisely and I fail to see how we could give them enough money to actually pay for research that is compelling. IE a state rep is lucky to have two aides, who haven’t received raises in 8 years and currently earn 28k… as they have for 8 years (no raises for inflation, even). Suddenly, we’re going to give them a research budget? We don’t even pay reps enough so they can send mail to their district… that has to come out of their campaign budgets. Furthermore, technically their aides could be doing this research… if we allowed them to have more of them.
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p>Furthermore, Ways and Means is a necessary evil. I agree they have too much power, but your suggestion just means to me that suddenly there will be two Ways and Means type committees. I guess it’s a good thing that the power would be diffused a bit, but it’s still not really tackling the problem. I do like your idea of having less joint committees and diffusing power again with the creation of necessary subcommittees, but again it’s only improving on the problem, not fixing it.
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p>So, what do I really think?
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p>First, a few quick fixes:
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p>Part of the problem on Beacon Hill is that resources aren’t going into the right places. I absolutely agree that we should be doing more research. I also agree that there needs to be more manpower there, but I think the answer to that is in fully funding state leg offices. They need more resources and more people power, which will allow them to do more as an elected leader.
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p>However, the real solution is going to come from the outside.
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p>Ultimately, we need more citizen power on Beacon Hill. There’s a serious absence of progressive vision at Beacon Hill and that’s because there aren’t enough unified, state-wide and all-encompassing progressive organizations pushing for change at Beacon Hill. There’s plenty of people, of course, but half the time we’re too busy fighting for our own special interests instead of working together for positive change. We’ve seen how effective citizen power can be when we’re organized, but we’ve only been able to do that targeting specific issues and campaigns – like electing a Governor or protecting marriage equality. What we really need is an organization with the same kind of power and resources, as well as legislative allies, that a MassEquality has… but have the organization exist to push for a wide agenda of progressive issues. This has been something I’ve been talking about for seemingly forever, but until it’s accomplished, we won’t be able to a) elect enough progressives and b) be effective citizen lobbyists on Beacon Hill.
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p>Without this kind of organization, the only effective organizing we can do is temporary – and, quite frankly, I’m sick of seeing awesome organizations settle down after the campaign is over. We need to push that momentum into something that’s permanent, something that’s at it’s base level issue-based and something that isn’t just limited to one issue or small group of issues.