Time for Change!

The flawed process of passing Predatory Gambling legislation highlighted the discrepancies of state statutes that exempt lawmakers from significant scrutiny. Closed door meetings were conducted. Meetings with Gambling Lobbyists who stroked little egos, provided inaccurate information and wrote or contributed to the legislation.

The public was shut out of the process.

While buckets of taxpayer dollars were spent on reports promising exaggerated low wage job creation and outrageous revenues, no cost analysis was ever conducted.

An infrastructure report commissioned by Senator Petrucelli was withheld. It would have informed voters that the infrastructure costs for a Gambling facility at Suffolk Downs will cost + $500 MILLION and not solve the gridlock. Big Dig anyone?   

'Charities' maintained by Senator Petrucelli and Mayor Tom Menino are exempted from scrutiny, escaping campaign contribution limits.

Both Senator Rosenberg, prime cheerleader of Predatory Gambling, and Secretary Bialecki profit from Casino investments and avoid public scrutiny. What other investments exist in which lawmakers stand to profit? What don't we know?

While the Predatory Gambling process highlighted the isolation lawmakers have allowed, all other legislation exists in a similar vacuum, concealed from public view, filled with misinformation.

Time for change!



Despite progress in government transparency, critics say Mass. Legislature still isn't open enough

By David Riley

Posted Mar 09, 2013

 

Herald News Photo Illustration

 

FALL RIVER —

State legislative leaders say they have made the House and Senate more open to the public in recent years, but watchdogs argue lawmakers still conduct too much important business out of the view of their constituents.

The Legislature has made efforts to revamp its online presence, overhauling its website, taking the 2010 process of redrawing legislative districts to the Web and joining the Open Checkbook initiative to post online most state payments to vendors.

In January, the state Senate voted unanimously to post the results of all roll call votes on the chamber’s website within 48 hours after a vote is taken, effective in May. That could make it easier to find the results of specific votes than it is now.

A spokesman for House Speaker Robert DeLeo also pointed to a slew of changes under a 2009 ethics reform law and new chamber rules as evidence of transparency.

Even critics praised many of these changes but said they did not address a fundamental flaw in transparency in state government: Unlike city councils and boards of selectmen, the Legislature is exempt from state public records and open meeting laws.

This means legislative committees can deliberate and vote on whether to advance legislation in secret, said Robert Ambrogi, an attorney and executive director of the Massachusetts Newspaper Publishers Association.

Legislators also can meet behind closed doors in caucuses. That happened this winter, when at least 100 lawmakers gathered in a private meeting with advocates to discuss gun control, according to published reports.

“When any government body is doing the work of the public, closing the doors should be the extreme exception. It should not be the rule,” Ambrogi said. “In the Legislature, it’s often the other way around.”

Legislation filed by state Rep. Peter Kocot, D-Northampton, would require lawmakers to put themselves under the microscope when it comes to transparency.

Among other things, the bill would set up a special commission of state representatives and senators to examine “the practicability of applying the provisions of the public records and open meetings laws” to the Legislature.

The commission also would examine lawmakers’ practices on making available to the public everything from records of committee votes to scheduling and notices of legislative hearings and sessions.

Common Cause of Massachusetts, the Newspaper Publishers Association and the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts helped craft the bill, though Ambrogi said he would have liked the commission to include people other than lawmakers.

Gavi Wolfe, legislative counsel for the ACLU’s state branch, said applying the public records and open meetings laws in their entirety to the Legislature isn’t necessarily the answer. He said he just wants both chambers to examine transparency seriously.

While the Legislature offers many details about bills online, transparency advocates want a better understanding of the lawmaking process.

“The process of legislating — the deliberative process, the committee process, the policy considerations that the Legislature is weighing — I’d like to see that become as public as possible, so people can understand and get involved in the business of policymaking in Massachusetts,” Wolfe said.

While committees hold public hearings on all legislation, advocates complained they sometimes happen with short notice or late changes in schedule. Some committees have only a handful of members present and review a large number of bills with limited opportunity to discuss them in depth, critics said.

After that, it can be hard to find out why a committee decides to advance a bill for a full vote of the chamber or to send it to a study committee, effectively killing it.

“The problem comes down to just not knowing the thought process to what the Legislature’s doing,” Ambrogi said.

Critics want more committee deliberations open or at least a record of a committee’s thinking on the bills it reviews. That especially goes for conference committees, which hammer out differences in major legislation passed by both houses.

Pam Wilmot, executive director of Common Cause, also called for a record of how committee members voted to be posted online.

“You call and ask for the vote and they don’t give it to you,” she said.

Advocates said they recognize needs for some exceptions. Wilmot said redacting private information from documents released to the public could be challenging for legislative offices with limited staff, for example.

Lawmakers also should be able to deal with issues of public safety or security, negotiations or other sensitive matters in private, Ambrogi said.

“I think that there is room, obviously, for executive session and closed-door sessions,” he said. “But there needs to be more transparency throughout the process.”


Read more: http://www.tauntongazette.com/news/x2082710507/Despite-progress-in-government-transparency-critics-say-Mass-Legislature-still-isnt-open-enough#ixzz2NQFGoWla