Modernizing Participation in Public Meetings
Full title: An Act to Modernize Participation in Public Meetings (H.3040 / S.2024)
Lead sponsors: Rep. Denise Garlick; Sen. Jason Lewis
Committee: State Administration and Regulatory Oversight
The Issue
Since early 2020, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Legislature has suspended provisions of the Open Meeting Law to enable public bodies to carry out their responsibilities remotely, with virtual access and participation by the public. As in-person gatherings were able to safely restart, many public bodies have shifted toward hybrid meetings, enabling both in-person and remote attendance by both officials and the public.
Such hybrid meetings have been a boon to public participation. Remote access has removed obstacles facing working people, parents of young children, other caregivers, people with disabilities, people with limited transportation, among many other populations who may not be able to travel to a city or town hall or spend hours waiting for their time to speak. Yet retaining a robust in-person component recognizes the value of in-person discussion and deliberation to democracy and ensures that unreliable Internet access, common in rural and low-income urban areas, is not a barrier to participating in our democracy.
Although the Legislature recently extended the option for hybrid meetings until 2025, we should not be relying on piecemeal extensions but instead reform Open Meeting Law for twenty-first-century democracy and technology.
The Solution
These bills would make such hybrid meeting accessibility permanent by phasing in hybrid meetings, prioritizing state agencies and elected municipal bodies, and requiring universal compliance by 2030.
Recognizing the financial costs of such technological upgrades, the bill would create a Municipal Hybrid Meeting Trust Fund to administer a grant program to help municipalities with necessary technological upgrades and allow municipalities to seek economic hardship waivers for non-elected bodies unable to provide hybrid meetings.
Contact Your Legislators
Find your legislators’ contact information here.
I urge you to co-sponsor and champion H.3040 / S.2024: An Act to Modernize Participation in Public Meetings (Garlick/Lewis), which would improve equitable access to open meetings by guaranteeing that members of the public can participate in person or remotely. Hybrid access for local meetings has helped increase participation and has removed obstacles facing working people, parents of young children, other caregivers, people with disabilities, people with limited transportation, among many other populations.
[Talk about how this has been beneficial to you.]
We should recognize and celebrate these benefits by making such access permanent and ensuring municipalities have the resources to do so, and the bill does that.
- Hybrid meetings have helped increase participation in our democracy. It’s time to update Open Meeting Law to make hybrid meeting access permanent.
- Hybrid meeting access is good for parents, for working people, for seniors, and for people with disabilities. Let’s make it a permanent fixture of local democracy.
- Democracy is strongest when everyone can participate. Hybrid meetings have expanded participation in local meetings, and the State House should make hybrid access permanent.
- The Legislature has extended hybrid meeting access multiple times. Let’s modernize Open Meeting Law, rather than engage in piecemeal extensions.
- Democracy shouldn’t be limited to those who can get to a city or town hall in the middle of the workday. Let’s make hybrid meeting access permanent.
Write a Letter to the Editor
Adapt the template below! Or email us at issues@progressivemass.com for help!
Since the early pandemic, the Massachusetts Legislature has suspended provisions of the Open Meeting Law to enable public bodies to carry out their responsibilities remotely, with virtual access and participation by the public. As meetings have come back in person, we have seen a widespread embrace of hybrid meetings.
Such hybrid meetings have been a boon to public participation. Remote access has removed obstacles facing working people, parents of young children, other caregivers, people with disabilities, people with limited transportation, among many other populations who may not be able to travel to a city or town hall or spend hours waiting for their time to speak. Yet retaining a robust in-person component recognizes the value of in-person discussion and deliberation to democracy and ensures that unreliable Internet access, common in rural and low-income urban areas, is not a barrier to participating in our democracy.
Although the Legislature recently extended the option for hybrid meetings until 2025, we should not be relying on piecemeal extensions. H.3040 / S.2024, An Act to Modernize Participation in Public Meetings—filed by Sen. Jason Lewis (D-Winchester) and Rep. Denise Garlick (D-Needham)—would guarantee hybrid access to local meetings and, importantly, ensure that cities and towns have the resources they need to do so.
Have a story to share? The ACLU is collecting!
Read More
- Editorial Board. “Make Remote Access to Public Meetings Permanent.” Boston Globe. August 1, 2022. https://www.bostonglobe.com/2022/08/01/opinion/make-remote-access-public-meetings-permanent/.
- Silverman, Justin. “Pandemic-Driven Changes to Open Meeting Law Should Be Made Permanent.” CommonWealth. January 17, 2022. https://commonwealthmagazine.org/media/pandemic-driven-changes-to-open-meeting-law-should-be-made-permanent/.
Talking Points & Sample Tweets