Jonathan Cohn, Peter Enrich, and Scotia Hille, “Some hopeful signs, but still a long way to go on legislative transparency,” CommonWealth Beacon, March 3, 2025.
ALTHOUGH THE DAYS were dark early in January, the legislative session began with some glimmers of sunlight, as both Senate President Karen Spilka and House Speaker Ron Mariano expressed a commitment to legislative process reform, indicating there would be upcoming proposals about how to make the Legislature more transparent and accountable.
We believe that Massachusetts ought to be a leader in just democratic rule and civic action. However, national rankings place us toward the bottom with regard to public ease of access to information, competitive elections, and financial transparency. Indeed, Massachusetts distinguishes itself by being the only state in the entire country in which all three branches of government hold themselves exempt from public records law. This means that for most residents of Massachusetts, our city councils and town meetings are held to a higher standard of transparency and accountability than our state elected officials.
The remarks from legislative leaders were a sign of growing momentum behind the push for more sunlight on Beacon Hill. When legislators last updated the public records law, in 2016, they created a commission to investigate whether the public records law should apply to them. They ended with no agreement, but more and more advocates have begun to understand that a non-transparent, overly top-down legislative process works against our goals.
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