Progressive Mass Policy Director Jonathan Cohn called out a “damning” lack of transparency that permeated the Senate debate on Thursday. Members passed the bill in a voice vote — an unusual move for a major policy change that he suggested was “intentionally opaque” and “choreographed” to tee up contentious closed-door negotiations as the two chambers work to reconcile major policy differences and pass a bill over the next three months.
“There is a fundamental opacity in the legislative process in Massachusetts and a damning lack of transparency here,” Cohn said of the Senate sports betting vote. “This is something you see again and again across issues — a tendency to avoid taking difficult votes as a way of asserting power.”
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Cohn pointed to a practice in both chambers to whip up unanimous and near-unanimous support out of view before legislation is debated and voted on publicly.
“So much is already decided behind closed doors that they’re not actually even pretending to do the process because the outcome of a vote is more than likely to be predetermined,” Cohn said.
He said both chambers “ironically” almost always conduct roll-call votes when leaders are confident they have overwhelming support and will push for voice votes on more contentious bills that would likely reveal slimmer margins.
“The opposite should be true,” he said.
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“We need electeds who are more willing to actually bring things to a vote, who aren’t afraid to put themselves and their colleagues on the record,” Cohn said.