The Massachusetts Legislature is not doing its job effectively and hasn’t for years. It is maddeningly slow, inefficient, and opaque. The state’s budget hasn’t been passed by the start of the fiscal year for ten years in a row and each year it is laden with over 100 outside sections that include major policy changes that typically avoid the scrutiny of the committee process and public transparency. Major legislation is often left to the last minute and then rushed through without roll call votes, limiting transparency and accountability, maximizing the leverage of leadership, and sometimes compromising its quality. Not infrequently important legislation is delayed with serious negative effects for the residents of the state.
To address these issues, PDM convened a Legislative Reform Working Group in early 2021 and is now participating in the Coalition to Reform Our Legislature. The desire for reform cuts across issues and ideologies and so too does the Coalition. The Coalition’s Steering Committee is working to engage a wide range of constituencies, including politicians and political activists of all stripes, as well as the business community, in a broad-based campaign for change. The Steering Committee is developing goals and strategies for changing our Legislature so it better serves us all. As an initial step, it devised, distributed, and reported on a questionnaire about legislative reform for candidates in the 2022 elections.
In November 2021, PDM’s Legislative Reform Working Group (LRWG) issued a report which concludes that the Massachusetts Legislature, particularly the House, has disempowered its members and become unresponsive to the voters and citizens of the Commonwealth. The report, titled The Massachusetts Legislature: Democracy in Decline, concludes that over-centralization of power in leadership and inadequate non-partisan research expertise have resulted in an inefficient and often ineffective legislative process, a lack of transparency, and a persistent lack of diversity in the Legislature. The report:
- Identifies and documents problems with the operation of the MA Legislature,
- Identifies best practices for legislative operation, and
- Lays the ground work for building a powerful coalition to advance legislative reform.
The recording of the press conference announcing the release of the report is here (41 minutes).
The release of the report was covered by CommonWealth Magazine and MassLive, which ran the story published by the State House News Service.
In August and September of 2021, the LRWG proposed adding language to the Democratic Party Platform calling for reform of the Legislature. Testimony advocating for this language was presented in writing and at hearings being held in August. Please read our proposal here. Although the proposed language wasn’t adopted verbatim, language was added that strengthened existing language calling for legislative reform.
In February 2021, an op-ed co-authored by the chairs of the LRWG, Jeanne Kempthorne and John Lippitt, appeared in CommonWealth Magazine.
In January 2021, PDM conducted a one-hour Forum on Making Our Massachusetts Legislature More Transparent and Effective. A description of it and its speakers is here and you can watch the recording of the Forum here. PDM also released the 2021 Resource Guide and Primer on Massachusetts Politics, by Jeanne Kempthorne. This short resource guide is designed to help you stay on top of our state legislature and the people elected to represent us there.
PDM and its Legislative Reform Working Group envision a Legislature that operates in a democratic and transparent manner, encouraging and incorporating public engagement. Voters would have easy access to the information they need to hold their elected representatives accountable. Legislation would progress and pass in a timely manner, end-of-session logjams would be minimized, and the use of non-germane riders on budgets and other bills severely limited. Passed legislation would be clear, effective, and well-crafted. Members of the Legislature would vote and act based on their personal judgment about the best interests of their constituents and the Commonwealth, grounded in their personal experience, values, and beliefs, instead of bowing to the wishes of and pressure from their chamber’s leadership.