We proposed two related petition initiatives in 2023 at the last minute, so imperfectly, to see if it is possible to fix issues around the legislature, including conflicts of interest. In 2024 we submitted this revised version. Constructive feedback is welcome. Both were submitted out of frustration and impatience with the legislature’s inaction.
Many common sense or environmental bills seem to languish in the state legislature for years or decades. Bills to require more school recess time have been in the legislature for years without action despite numerous legislative sponsors – if the support is real, then the lack of passage suggests a problem with getting anything done. Privacy bills might as well just never be submitted. Only bills that lack industry opposition or have enormous wells of public support seem able to move forward quickly.
Despite this, there are times when the public floods the legislature to speak on some bills at public hearing. There are times when bills industry loves are halted because of public opposition and persuasion.
Yet, the state legislature’s problems include a lack of transparency, potential hidden conflicts of interest, and rules and campaigns that fail to support democratic functioning. ActonMass (.org) has built a campaign for transparency and more democratic legislative rules. In 2021 several amendments were submitted proposing to increase transparency on bills. They are a nonprofit and so cannot bring forward a petition initiative under the nonprofit, but they are building support. Other nonprofits are working on this as well.
One problem is the excessive power of legislative leadership, in particular that of the speaker of the house. Even though legislators earn about $70,000 in salary, the Speaker of the House decides the bonus pay of nearly 160 representatives, while the Senate President decides it for the rest ( a lesser number). Bonus pay currently ranges from zero to $90,000 extra. With the ability to give or take away $90,000 in bonus pay, the speaker has great influence over most of the legislature.
This kind of control could be dangerous in the hands of one wrong person. Although control also depends on what the market, or the legislature, is willing to bear, the fact is that bullies often manage to con, bribe, and create the kind of toxic culture that disables opposition. Current Speaker of the House Ron Mariano may be the nicest person, but this doesn’t matter – allowing bonus pay to be decided this way is wrong.
Leadership is also able to handpick a few people for ‘conference’ committees to rewrite bills entirely, ignoring the proposals of the committees that held public hearings (public hearings in theory, disregarding numerous absent legislators).
The House also calls a vote. The speaker can block or push bills at will, as well as bring bills to vote without transparency, so that legislators may be voting on bills that have never been seen except by 3 or 4 people. At the end of the year, bills are often bundled together for votes, making it difficult for any legislator to say yes or no to any one bill since the good may be bundled with the bad.
The excuse for bundling is that there are apparently so many bills to pass. Yet, bills are usually held for a vote until the very last minute as if to control other legislators. Since the speaker can decide nearly unilaterally whether any bill passes, legislators are often missing during public hearings.
The excuse for holding bills is that some legislators stop attending when their bills pass. If, for some reason, some legislators just quit working after passage of their favorite bills, then their pay should be docked – but the law should never be delayed.
Ironically, despite bundling bills, the legislature doesn’t seem to pass bills that appear to have majority support, or even bills that both the speaker and senate president profess to support. The budget is never passed on time, partly because the budgeting process allows non-budget items to be tossed in minus public hearings and attention.
Our state legislature has two branches – House and Senate. Sending bills through committees for both the house and senate slows down legislation. Would we want two branches of the town or city council as Davis Bernstein, in an article linked below, asks?
The only benefit of slow action is that it seems that industry has more time, money, and energy to influence legislators – industry easily pays their lawyers to write, and sometimes threaten, public agencies and legislators, as well as for consultants and scientists that can twist the truth. Attending public hearings or reading dockets, you see the polish of presentations from paid industry lawyers. Most people, including academics and other experts, don’t have time to dedicate to public hearings and dockets.
Plus, the legislature has set up disclosure laws and public access in way that amounts to very little disclosure. Campaign laws in Massachusetts are also unfairly set up to benefit incumbents, so much so that incumbents don’t need to gather as many signatures to run – also reducing the light shined on incumbents by election campaigns and debate.
The power of the speaker of the house naturally encourages corruption. State speakers of the house indicted include Speaker Salvatore DiMasi (D) in 2011 for kickbacks; Speaker Thomas Finneran in 2004 for lying about redistricting to his benefit; and Speaker Charles Flaherty (D) in 1996 for lying about taxes and lobbyist gifts.
The above is a quick summary based in part on a number of articles that have criticized the state legislature over the years, such as the following:
- Let’s Dismantle the MA House of Representatives, by David Bernstein in Boston Magazine, 3/26/2017 – details the leadership conference committee rewriting bills, as well as how bills get choked up by too many committees.
- Disappointing Tradition in House (1/3/2019) – Eagle Tribune criticizes non-secret vote for House speaker.
- Ex-Lobbyist Reveals How House Really Works (12/19/2018) – by Phillip Sego in Commonwealth Magazine
- MA House Plays Follow the Leader (2/11/2019) – by Bob Katzen in Sentinel & Enterprise, discusses how house legislators all cast same vote as house speaker’s vote, as called in, and then immediately switched their vote when the house speaker called in to switch his vote.
- Massachusetts Path from Transparency to Secrecy (10/3/2023) Bridget Beleno in Massachusetts Collegian
- It’s Time to Bring Transparency to the Legislature (2/24/2021) Jonathan Cohn in the Commonwealth Magazine
- Conflicts of interest in state government and the need for community media
- Monsanto papers at US Right to Know discuss how the industry paid for fake scientific and expert reviews to pretend Roundup was safe: anti-genetic engineering (GMO) research/news group]: https://usrtk.org/monsanto-papers/