Here is the SHNS excerpt of my testimony:I shut my office and went to the State House this morning
to testify in favor of having Open Meeting Laws and the Information Law Act apply to the Massachusetts
Legislature. Turns out the State House News quoted some of what I said, almost
accurately – note that it was a very heavy computer desk w/o wheels that didn’t
get moved for two years while reading the material quoted below (Enjoy, and
please do contact Sen. Donnelly in support of Shanley’s bill – the letter I
filed is at the end, as well, as a cut and paste:
[excerpt follows]
DiMASI CASE INVOKED AS REASON FOR OPEN MEETING LAW CHANGES
With former Speaker Salvatore DiMasi sentenced to prison on public corruption charges
and two more public officials indicted on Monday on conspiracy to violate
campaign finance laws, a legislative committee on Tuesday took another look ay
at the state’s open meeting and public records laws. Testifying on behalf of
Rep. Thomas Stanley’s bill to subject the Legislature to the state’s open
meeting law, Deborah Butler told members of the State Administration and
Regulatory Oversight Committee such a law might have cut down on the temptation
for DiMasi to steer public contracts to a favored software company in exchange
for kickbacks.[Having] “No open meeting law puts people in the crosshairs of
temptation on Beacon Hill,” Butler said, describing herself as an unaffiliated
citizen and taxpayer. Butler shared with lawmakers a story about how her
family’s cat had dragged a dead bird into their house that went unnoticed until
until it began to decay behind her son’s desk. &q uot;Any unexamined place
will get nasty. It will have spiders. It will have cobwebs. It will have
decaying animals. Beacon Hill, because it has no open meetings laws, has lots
and lots of places like the space behind my son’s computer desk,” she said.
Butler’s testimony preceded calls for Massachusetts to update its public records
laws…
As the dominant party, Democrats must commit to clean, open government, and do so NOW – or I assure you, the Democratic Party will continue to pay for the perception that the “go along to get ahead” culture is the norm, and like the dead bird behind my son’s computer desk, something smells…because there is no requirement for openness and public access to the making of laws and contracts on Beacon Hill by our legislature. We can – we must – commit to clean government, open government, and open meeting laws and rules for Beacon Hill just like the requirements for our cities and towns!
Read all about it