Thank you Matt Visor at the Globe, for saying what I have been saying for months:
They are the type of meetings that would be illegal for boards of selectmen and city councils across the state. But because the Legislature is exempt from the state’s open meeting and public records laws, they are able to deliberate in private and guard key documents from public scrutiny.
The rest of Matt Visor’s story
Deliberations which occur in secret will neither heal the public’s lack of trust, nor prevent further tempatations and failures to act ethically by some legislators.
The shame of this is that most legislators have high integrity, great empathy, and sought election to make this Commonwealth a better place. Allowing important decisions to be hammered out only in secret creates a culture of temptation and secrecy.
We can do better. We must do better. Even if the Open Meeting Laws and Freedom of Information laws currently do not officially apply to the House and Senate – how about both legislative bodies show the courage and integrity to act as if they are held to the same standards as the Alderman of Somerville or the Selectmen of Arlington? Just because statutes were changed to allow the legislature to sink into the shadows decades ago, does not mean they must act this way.
…which should require a Constitutional amendment to demonstrate that the people are ultimately sovereign regarding how their government operates. I also believe there should be a provision for executive session entered by a 2/3 vote in appropriate circumstances, but with votes required to be taken in public.
One way or another, these decisions will not be made in public view. If there are public meetings, they will be full of meaningless speeches. The real deliberations will occur “offline.”
In the absence of openness, the likelihood of corruption increases. Period.
A lot of public business therefore ends up being transacted in local pubs and eating spots. I still remember my astonishment, nearly thirty years ago, after I joined the Billerica Selectmen in Thackery’s after my first Selectman’s meeting (as a citizen). The first thing that transpired was a very jovial local trucking company owner who just happened to have an extra pair of field box seats for the Chairman. No quid-pro-quo was asked for or, to my knowledge, given. The Chairman did, however, happily accept the gift. Those Selectman meetings were all open — and the real business invariably took place at Thackery’s.
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p>Mind you, I agree with you that these meetings should be open. I just think that JimC is correct when he observes much of the real nitty-gritty happens in less public venues.
Which is before the Open Meeting Law (????). The effect of the law is the opposite, even running into other board members at random on the street can have legal consequences. Emails between board members are subject to the law, and the public records law.
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p>Enough people from a board to constitute a quorum cannot discuss board business, or any sort, or they are in violation. Our board of select(wo)men is only 3, and the quorum is 2. So even social events are challenging for them. Your buddies at Thackery’s would be in deep hot water, and the town. You’d need an override to pay for the fines (just kidding Spartacus).
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p>Nuances of the law aside. The points are:
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p>1. Good for the goose good for the gander. If they should not make us subject to laws they are unwilling to abide by.
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p>2. The law can be pain at times, but the public’s business should be done in public.
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p>3. The law contains exemptions for certain things, and allows a board to go into executive session, so this concern about privacy is BS.
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p>4. I believe there is a generic cluelessness in business and government about how the public feels at the moment. The bailed out corporate bonus babies can’t understand why we they are hated, neither does the legislature. They can’t grasp the perception the public has of them, and what is driving that perception. Either they start to change those things or – eventually – voters will start changing them.
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p>I fear we are handing Republicans some issues here: corruption, competence, arrogance, etc. that can jump start their recovery.
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…how can it be enforced? If there are five selectmen, any number of them could also be personal friends with each other. As such they chat and things come up. All you can do for certain is to make sure binding decisions are made in public and that time is alloted on the agenda for public testimony. I for one don’t want to try to make sure that three selectmen never end up in the same bar at the same time. That would be like issuing mutual restraining orders amongst all of them and seems completely impractical.
Selectmen and city councilors seem to do fine.
Every once in awhile someone raises a stink in my town because three selectmen or school committee members (a quorum in each case) were seen together outside a meeting. It’s as if they want to go in and separate them as if they were a couple getting too close at a school dance. I find that completely unnecessary.
having the Open Meeting Law cover the Legislature. But I remain skeptical about what that would accomplish.
You’d be surprised how many decisions are actually made at a school committee meeting, for example. Furthermore, there are ways to ensure that less corruption happens “offline” too. Open meeting laws are not an ‘either/or’ approach in fixing corruption — it’s just a carrot approach & we need more of those.
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p>Possible circumvention of a law, any law, isn’t sufficient reason to either scrap the law or fail to implement it. We have laws against theft and robbery. And yet, theft and robbery continues to occur. What to do?
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p>Personally, if open meetings were to occur, I would go to them. And, were I to come across ‘meaningless speeches’, I might be tempted to stand up and say, “Nice speech. But what are you going to do?” I’d further be disinclined to exercise the franchise wrt the orator of the meaningless speech: I’d look around for someone else to be the beneficiary of my vote.
and you are grandstanding about their grandstanding, is the public’s business being done?
The real discussion here is about more democracy versus efficiency. And there is a balance between, for example, pure pebescite rule and authoritarian rule, which we call “representative democracy.” I think you’ll find a similar balance is the topic here.
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p>Perhaps MORE transparency is needed; but attempting to get all business conducted in public may be both unenforceable and impractical; and may not serve the public interest at the end of the day.
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p>In a democracy, representative or otherwise, the process is as important as the outcome. We see the results of a bad process deriving bad outcomes in California. The business of the public lies in the process as much, if not more, than specific policy. You might consider it ‘grandstanding’, but anytime dialogue occurs between the representor and those represented, democracy succeeds.
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p>You’ll note, I hope, what my expectations of meetings are. I thought I was clear: I expect to be informed and I expect to sway outcomes with the franchise, as I said, and not by demanding specific actions. I would attend meetings in the capacity of the represented. If I think I’m being poorly represented, I’ll vote for someone else. Anybody who’s been paying attention to my posting here, knows I’m not advocating plebiscite rule, but rather attempting to walk that balance required of citizenship.
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p>You say MORE as though we have some to begin with… It’s clear, I hope, from the article posted, that this isn’t the case at all. Impropriety on the part of past representatives (and, at least, complicity on the part of present representatives) is now coming to light and is a direct result of the present system.
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p>I don’t disagree with your contention regarding balance and impracticality. However, the present systems doesn’t represent, as you infer, simply one end of that scale. It’s not on that scale at all.
that make up much of the “input” and “public comment” regarding legislation. I do sometimes. They will put all “education reform” (for example) issues on the table and open up (for example) the opulent Gardner Auditorium, and you get input and public debate on the issues, at least among those who show up. So we DO have “some.”
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p>Your characterization that there is no input and no debate is exaggerated. My suggestion that limiting discussion ONLY to public session would be excessive, and invites grandstanding is based on YEARS of attending City Council and School Committee meetings. When something really happens at these events, it was all hashed out before the meeting began. Where?
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p>I don’t recall anybody suggesting only public session decision making. I certainly did not. I do suggest the present value approaches zero
AmberPaw’s suggestion seems right to me simply because the Democrats are such an overwhelming majority of the legislature. In a more evenly divided body, I think it is sensible to allow the parties to caucus in private.
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p>Also, I want to point out that the under the Open Meeting Law, only meetings involving a quorum of the governmental body are required to be open. Since under Amendment XXXIII a majority of each house makes up a quorum, the public meeting laws will not prevent private dickering among small groups of legislators. And I think this is not inappropriate in a legislature. It has been decades since the real work of any American legislature, as far as I know, was done on the floor of the house.
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p>TedF
not just the whole House or Senate. If not, we should amend that as well.
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CHAPTER 30A. STATE ADMINISTRATIVE PROCEDURE
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p>Chapter 30A: Section 11A. Definitions
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p>Section 11A. The following terms as used in section eleven A1/2 shall have the following meanings:
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p>”Governmental body”, a state board, committee, special committee, subcommittee or commission, however created or constituted within the executive or legislative branch of the commonwealth or the governing board or body of any authority established by the general court to serve a public purpose in the commonwealth or any part thereof, but shall not include
the general court or the committees or recess commissions thereof, orbodies of the judicial branch, or any meeting of a quasi-judicial board or commission held for the sole purpose of making a decision required in an adjudicatory proceeding brought before it, nor shall it include the board of bank incorporation or the Policyholders Protective Board.We just learned in Charley’s most recent thread that we can make our state legislators file it. Anyone want to organize around this? I’ll ask mine if a few people as their leg/sen. That way, we may just get a few cosponsors.
Because filing such a bill in the legislature is a complete waste of time. The ONLY way a must needed change in the law like this to happen, will be through a ballot initiative (and I’d love to see the leg repeal it, we just need to make sure they’d have too much hell to pay). This is a Question many of us here (and my knuckle dragging “friends” at RMG) would gladly (and I think easily) plenty get sigs for.
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p>BUT THERE IS ONE PROBLEM WITH THIS CONCEPT. According to the open meeting law, you first must post the meeting 7 days in advance. Mostly that would be good; we’d know when the all important conference committees would be held. But in the reality of the “candles burning at both ends” legislative sessions that bang up to the end of the session or the fiscal year…that one week window will create havoc and give the legislature an excuse to kill lots of bills and blame the change for their inability to get things done in an orderly manner (like NOT passing budgets at 3 am). But additional language could wave the 7 day public notice for the General Court only, if it conflicted with end of session dates or the start of new fiscal years (but meeting must still be posted–but in these special cases–they don’t have 7 day notices.)
…ya proof read the post, but mindlessly ignore proofing the subject line.
Posting must be two business days, not seven and there are provisions for emergency meetings within the 48 hours.
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p>I think it is long past doable for the Legislature to start adhering to the standards that they set for others (Open Meeting Laws, pensions, health insurance).
…just plummeted through the basement…
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p>From the Globe article referenced earlier:
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p>The guy who hired me, at my present job, regularly comes and sits with me and says ‘why are you doing that?’ and ‘why are you saying that?’ The CEO often comes around and asks similar questions (it’s a relatively small company…) They do this because I work for them. Murray works for me. She works for you. We have every right, and apparently all the reason, in the world, to ask these questions of her. That Murray fails to grasp this simplest of democratic principles actively engenders loathing in me. I can’t possibly fathom why, other than pan-galactic stupidity, any democrat would even think this, let alone say it aloud.
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p>Nor does speed of work count for anything. Who cares that work is done faster? This isn’t NASCAR. This isn’t a deadline driven job. The General Court has had all year to get things done and now all of a sudden speed counts? Bull shit.
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p>As well, unethical behaviour is enabled when secrecy and speed trumps open deliberations. Participation counts for more, in a democracy, than almost any other metric.
Are those elected chosen to oversee the voters or to work with the people to produce a better tomorrow? What do professional politicians think? (Hint: “Actions speak louder than words.”)
Your legislators do not “work” for you. They represent you. They have been selected by you and your fellow citizens to make decisions on your behalf. If you don’t like those decisions, vote them out. All the rest of this is wasted breath and phony issues promoted by people who would rather rant and rave about specious concerns than serious problems.
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p>Clearly, if the legislator(s) can explain, or show, the process by which they came to their decision, rather than positing some up or down metric, I will have a better basis on which to decide my vote, no? I might disagree with an outcome, while agreeing with a process… paradox? Only for the simple minded.
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p>And yes, they do work for me. And for you too…
is to decide what outcomes are important to you. If you think that quality healthcare and education, support for the poor, disabled, and elderly are more important than trying to legislate good conduct, then you support candidates who offer those criteria to the voters, spend less time worried about process, and more time worried about progress.
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p>Otherwise, you rant and rave in places like this about process, support candidates who have no interest in real issues where hared decisions have to be made about resources and their allocation, and remain frustrated when it turns out that character has very little to do with how many rules you try to put in place.
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p>Let me spell it out for you, since you didn’t get it the first couple of times: the most important outcome to me is the democratic process. I might be for or against abortion, but I won’t live with a decision, whatever decision, imposed by fiat. Monarchies, oligarchies, dictatorships and senate cloakrooms might produce the outcomes I favor, and more efficiently than a democracy. Those I would refuse. As I would not rob a bank to enrich myself, so I would not corrupt the process solely for the sake of the outcome. Is that clear enough for you?
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p>I think that quality democracy and representation are more important than specific policies. Indeed, those specific policies only have worth that I can buy into if they are arrived at via the democratic process.
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p>How widely you miss the mark. You, obviously, are having a debate with someone else and have dragged me into it, unwittingly, projecting some others debating point unto my own. What frustration I have, and which engender my comments in this post, stems from support of a candidate (Deval Patrick) who has demonstrated a real interest in real issues (and the process by which they are debated)who stands in opposition to a legislature who clearly wish the citizenry would STFU and let them continue to avoid hard decisions.
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Your comments make me think that you are living in some backwater banana republic.
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p>If you live in Massachusetts, you are living in a state where we have a democratic process that has been functioning and evolving nicely, thank you very much, for more than 200 years.
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p>It is a process that has helped this state be, and continue to be, one of the most litereate and affluent in the country. And it is one that has allowed for vigorous debate and progress on many important issues before our new governor arrived on the scene.
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p>We have a powerful governor’s office and a legislature that vigorously guards its prerogative to provide checks on balances on that office. We are well-served by both branches.
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p>The process of getting a majority of 200 reps and senators who come from a variety of backgrounds and who vigorously represent the interests of their constituents is messy. It doesn’t necessarily suit the timetable of any governor, not just the present one.
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p>Governors most often succeed when the use their bully pulpit to defend the power of their ideas and persuade the public on the substance of their arguments. Getting involved in the “process by which they are debated” demonstrates a weak belief in the power of those ideas and their ability to stand public scrutiny on their own merits.
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p>Your complaints might be warranted if you lived in a state that did not have a strong tradition of progressive legislation from its legislature. You might also remember that for the twenty years prior to the current governor, the legislature was the focal point for continuing the progressive progress of this state on issue after issue while Republican governors ruled the roost.
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p>Your complaints ring hollow – our governor will succeed when his ideas are right. His supporters should stop whining about process and get out in front of his ideas.
Well, of course. Easier still if we just get rid of elected representatives and get a “Fearless Leader” (hereinafter referred to as FL). FL can make all decisions without the need for discussion. Save money, too; no wimpy reps to pay. FL might have to track down those that moan about an need for “informed electorate”.
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p>Notice how “the need for secrecy” is becoming so much more important for politicians, prosecutors, administrators, accountants, financial specialists, and on and on? How many actions that affect our lives can stand the light of day?
How can the public participate when they pass ETHICS REFORM without a hearing or a bill in print for the public to read, the process is a joke and most of you posters are complicit. Demand a bill in print to read and a public hearing.
I found myself thinking about this this morning. I remain a bit skeptical, but this is the sort of “letter of the law” post that I am constantly writing, so kudos for saying so and for being ahead of me on it.