Sunshine Week and the Legislature

This week is Sunshine Week, an annual initiative by journalists to raise awareness about the public’s right to open government at all levels.

And just in time for Sunshine Week, the Massachusetts House of Representatives last week refused to go along with the state Senate and will not post online the formal roll call votes it holds.

The Senate, to its credit, will begin online posting of its votes starting on May 1.

Roll calls, of course, show how each legislator votes on every measure when the Legislature actually bothers to take a recorded vote. It’s public information that’s already legally available.

You just have to drive to Boston, go to the respective House and Senate Clerk’s offices during regular business hours and get a printed copy of the tally on each bill.

Or you can call each of the 200 legislators’ offices and ask how the boss voted.  Or you can check the online journals of the House and Senate and plod through many pages of usually unrelated legislative business just to find the roll calls.

But the Legislature’s online journal records only go back 13 years, and good luck if you don’t happen to know the exact date or even the right year some particular vote was taken.

Unlike some of the other information on the legislative website, the journals are not searchable documents, so any attempt to find out how your legislator may have voted on a given issue is going to take a really long time.

The Sunlight Foundation, a non-profit good government organization not affiliated with the organizers of Sunshine Week, gave the Massachusetts Legislature a grade of F for its website, one of only a half dozen state legislatures so “honored.”

The foundation specifically cited the lack of online roll calls and relatively little information on any legislative business except for the most recent sessions.

Unfortunately, the House’s refusal to make its records easily accessible is symptomatic of a state Legislature that insists all municipal and regional boards and committees meet openly and their records be open to the public, but imposes no such requirements upon itself.

Cities, towns and regional districts, with narrowly defined exceptions, are covered by the Open Meeting and Public Records Laws that mandate open government at the local level.

But the Legislature has exempted itself from both laws. This is either hypocritical or downright cynical, because regardless of the size of the political entity, government business needs to be open and our elected and appointed representatives need to be accountable.

Study commission proposed

Rep. Peter V. Kocot (D-Northampton) has filed a bill that would establish a bipartisan legislative commission to study ways of opening up the workings of the Massachusetts Legislature.

Part of what the commission would do is consider putting the Legislature under the jurisdiction of open meeting and public records laws that currently only apply to cities, towns and districts, as well as taking a more proactive stance in general on providing information to the public.

Common Cause, the American Civil Liberties Union and the Newspaper Publishers Association helped write the bill, but some have criticized this measure because only legislators would serve on the commission; no journalists, good government types or non-legislators need apply.

If the bill passes, it would still be a good first step, even if legislators are the only ones doing the studying. It’s about time both houses of the Legislature apply to themselves the same open meeting and public record laws as everyone else.

And the House and Senate should both agree to post a searchable data base with every legislator’s complete voting record and all other important legislative business.

This week the season turned to spring, and it’s time for some sunshine.

Posted by Bruce Garlow on March 21, 2013. Filed under Berkshire Beacon Hill Spotlight,Opinion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry