To say that transparency and accountability are not considered by any of the key players is an understatement. They don’t even want to admit they are talking privately, as this excerpt from the State House News illustrates.
“Look, in an ideal world, we’d see the bill, we’d be talking about specific language, we would contribute to that language, so we would all know where we were going and whether or not we were on a collision course,” Patrick said. “We have not gotten that level of – we haven’t gotten that yet from the transportation chair.”
Asked about his confidence that a satisfactory ethics bill would reach his desk this week, Patrick said he would have preferred not to wait until the closing hours of the fiscal year before addressing the various reform measures.
“I had a conversation last week with the House chair of transportation which was frankly not that informative, but we’ve been clear about what we want to see in those bills,” he said.
Wagner disputed Patrick’s characterization of the meeting, which he said was held in Patrick’s office last Thursday.
“I have two recollections about the meeting,” he said. “The first is that we had agreed that outside of that room we weren’t going to talk about the meeting. And my second recollection is that it was very informative, at least from my point of view.”
He added, “We had agreed at the request of the governor not to talk about the meeting outside the meeting.”
So all we can do now is lurk in the hallways or watch and wait. And pity the Governor who from the moment these conference reports land on his desk has only 10 days to submit his amendments and his vetoes. And then there is more lurking and waiting because the House can take all the time they want to take up reject those amendments and over ride those vetoes, or not take them up at all.
Thank you for the “outside insider” view.
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p>And that cartoon is awesome.
on the tranparency and openess of the ongoing conference committees around ethics, the budget, transportation and pensions. Punctuated by a trip down memory lane remembering the good old days of open conference committees and 3 full days of debate every week. But enough of that.
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p>Many of us feel that transparency is the key to
1. encouraging and supporting civic engagement and
2. making public officials accountable.
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p>While some of us want to impose the open meeting law on the Legislative process, including conference committees, some of us think it would be unworkable and uninforceable because the key players are having private conversations all over the place.
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p>I have no idea what kind of agreement the Governor and Chairman Wagner had about not talking to the press when they had their little talk about the transportation reform conference commitee. But whatever their personal agreement, I don’t think that kind of meeting, which happens a dozen times a day between the 9 key players would be in compliance with an open meeting law anyway.
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Judy,
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p>Do you really want Trav, or Charlie Flaherty, or the State Police and MBTA lobbyists sitting at the conference committee table? You know some of these guys don’t have to say a word — their presence in a room is enough to sway the minds of some lily-livered legislators.
What’s the difference between representatives of the Governor’s office (or even Charlie Flaherty)sitting in on conference committee sessions and meeting with the conferees privately in their offices or resolving an issue as they march in a parade together today? Answer: none.
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p>What’s missing today with closed conference committee meetings? Answers: lack of public accountability, and an more time and opportunity for the public and rank and file legislators to understand the policy and political ramifications of the issues at hand.
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p>Key to accountability in those good old days was a robust state house press corps who also sat in on conference committees with us paid and volunteer activists who were pretty good at intimidating conferees ourselves. (I mean who wants to vote to cut a program for disabled children when some of their mothers are sitting there at midnight knitting a long scarf.)
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p>The press actually wrote stories about the daily sessions that included reports about who said what about which issue, and speculated freely about why, including too many beers during the supper break. Just like they do now with a lot more information and attributable quotes.
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p>Key to understanding the policy and political ramifications of the issues at hand for the public and the rank and file is also the fact that a robust state house press corps reported on the conference deliberations in the state wide and regional press, that even included detailing the members of the audience. And interested local activists and fascinated rank and file legislators where able to follow at least the main issues and arguments.
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p>Massachusetts Liberal blogs about his very problem today.
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A high level of citizen involvement in government is great, but we have a representative form of government for good reason.
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p>It’s a dirty little secret of political blogging, charity work, and political activism that whoever has the time and opportunity ends up doing it, as opposed to a representative cross-section of the citizenry. In my town, volunteer groups, committees, and boards are populated with stay-at-home moms and dads, retired people, and the self-employed. I have no complaint about that, except that I wonder what happens in other towns with a higher percentage of double-income families and single parents.
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p>Anyway, it must be nice to be paid to hang around the state house, but a lot of us want to work hard every two years or so to get the right sausage-makers elected, then go on with our lives, making a living and enjoying the fruits of our labor, while the sausage is made out of sight.
It’s not only nice to get paid to “hang around the state house” it’s fun and endlessly rewarding. Imagine getting paid to coach and train groups of community activists and then watch them be successful in promoting an effective public policy solution to a pressing public policy problem by organizing themselves into a district based lobbying campaign and helping to make the sausage.
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p>And many of them are double income families and single parents who participate not by hanging around the state house, but working with others to lobby their own Reps and Senators in the district.
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