Letter to the Conference Committee on Rules Reform

The Honorable Michael Moran 

The Honorable Cynthia Stone Creem 

The Honorable William Galvin 

The Honorable Joan Lovely 

The Honorable David Muradian 

The Honorable Ryan Fattman 

Saturday, March 8, 2025 

Dear Majority Leader Moran, Majority Leader Creem, and Members of the Conference Committee: 

We are pleased that both chambers have taken up reforms to the legislative process to promote greater transparency, accountability, and timeliness. As we said in our January 22 letter, “The citizens of Massachusetts have made it clear: we expect our legislature to be transparent, democratic, and accountable to its constituents.” 

As you negotiate differences to determine a final set of Joint Rules to govern the 194th session of the General Court, we urge you to consistently side with the reforms that maximize the ability of rank-and-file legislators and the public to participate fully in the process. 

Hearing Notice (Joint Rule 1D)

We urge you to adopt the language from the Senate, which would increase the notice for hearings from 72 hours to 5 days. This makes it more possible for members of the committee and members of the public to make space in their schedule to participate and to make whatever arrangements they need to in order to make that possible. 

Making Testimony Public (Joint Rule 1D)

We were pleased to see both chambers recognize the public interest in making the testimony submitted to committees accessible. We urge adoption of Senate language specifying that such testimony will be made “available on the general court website,” as opposed to simply “publicly available.” This guarantees the broadest accessibility and reflects best the underlying intent we hope both chambers share. 

Committee Votes (Joint Rule 1D) 

We were similarly pleased that both chambers recognize that Massachusetts should join the majority of state legislatures in publishing committee votes. We urge adoption of Senate language specifying that the rule applies to “study orders” as well as votes on pieces of legislation themselves and language clarifying that the results of both “electronic polls” and in-person roll calls are to be made public. 

We also urge adoption of House language specifying that such votes should be published in a timely manner, i.e., within 48 hours. 

Materials Presented to Committee Members Before Votes (Joint Rule 1D)

The legislative process works best when legislators are fully informed about the matters before them. We urge you to adopt House language stating that committee members will receive “(i) a document clearly marking any changes made by the committee to the underlying matter, and (ii) a document clearly marking any changes to any general or special law proposed by the matter, which shall be made publicly available.” We urge that these be made available to the public as well as legislators before said votes and that committee members be provided due time to review them before voting. 

Reporting Deadlines (Joint Rule 10)

We are pleased to see that both chambers are interested in moving up the deadline for reporting bills out of committee. 


To ensure a thorough and expedient legislative process, we urge adoption of Senate language establishing a new reporting deadline of the first Wednesday in December as well as House language creating a series of rolling deadlines following hearings. 

Disposition of Bills Not Acted Upon (Joint Rule 10)

Under current rules, if a committee makes no report on a bill by a given deadline, the bill is marked as receiving an adverse report. This language, included in the Senate‘s proposal, should stay, instead of the House’s proposal to dispense of such remaining bills with a bulk study order.

Open Conference Committee Meetings (Joint Rule 11) 

We have endorsed making conference committee meetings fully open to the public, and we urge you to adopt Senate language specifying that the first meeting of a conference committee must be an open meeting. 

Time to Read Conference Reports (11B) 

As previously stated, the legislative process works best when legislators are fully informed about the matters before them. We urge you to adopt Senate language ensuring that members have at least one full day to review a conference report before voting on it. 

End of Formal Session (Joint Rule 12A)

Both chambers adopted new language specifying what work can occur after the end of formal session on July 31 of the second year of session. We urge adoption of the House’s more tailored language identifying the specific cases in which votes could occur and how such cases relate to work largely conducted within the formal session. We are concerned by any effort to push significant legislative activity into the fall and winter of the second year of session. 

Again, we are pleased to see attention to issues of transparency, accountability, and efficiency of the legislative process. The changes elaborated above embrace the best of both chambers’ proposals and would help improve public trust and engagement in the legislative process. We hope that this will be a sign of a broader change in the building in the direction of openness, engagement, and responsiveness. 

Sincerely, 

Act on Mass 

Progressive Democrats of Massachusetts 

Progressive Massachusetts

Editorial: “Some hopeful signs, but still a long way to go on legislative transparency”

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.

……

Statement on Passage of House and Senate Rules

“We are pleased that both the House and Senate have embraced reforms in the Joint Rules that will promote transparency, accountability, and (we hope) timeliness. Although more steps should be taken in the future to guarantee that the public’s work is done in public view, both chambers supported measures to expand access to information and to mitigate the end-of-session bottleneck, changes that resulted from a clear public message that voters demand better from the Legislature. We urge both chambers to come to a swift and comprehensive compromise for Joint Rules for the Session. It has been too long since both chambers agreed on a set of rules, and the legislative process has suffered because of that.

As we approach the month of March with still no committees formed and no bills being heard, we stand out in the country in our legislative delays. There is so much work that needs to get done to be proactive against the threats coming from the Donald Trump – Elon Musk administration, and further delay puts our Commonwealth at risk.

While we eagerly await the finalization of Joint Rules, we recognize that rules are only one element of the legislative process. For our Legislature to truly deliver for everyday people, we need cultural changes throughout the chamber. May new rules be a first step toward that.”

The House and Senate Have Both Adopted New Rules for Themselves. What’s New?

The MA House and Senate have both passed their respective proposals for the Joint Rules, which we discuss here. But both also passed reforms to their own chamber’s rules as well. Let’s explore.

(Want to see the exact text changes? Read here.)

The Senate’s New Rules

  • Making Testimony Public: Regardless of what is agreed to in the Joint Rules, the Senate plans to make testimony submitted to its committees as well as joint committees public, with appropriate redactions for sensitive information. The Senate’s rules previously only addressed testimony for Senate-only committees, and such testimony would only be available upon request.
  • Committee Votes: Senators already make their votes public in Senate-only committees (Ways & Means being the committee with the most of such votes); however, the Senate now plans to publish its members votes in Joint Committees as well. However, the Senate removed the language stipulating the timeliness in which said votes should be published.
  • Summaries of Bills Voted On in Committee: The Senate also plans to make public the summaries of all bills voted on by Senate committees. These summaries often already exist, but for members only.

The House’s New Rules

  • Attendance Records and Requirements: The House will record and publish attendance of committee members at House committee hearings and require in-person attendance from all members, not just the chair.
  • Committee Votes: The House previously only required the reporting of the tallies from committee votes along with the names of those voting no. The new House rules would require all committee members’ votes be recorded and would eliminate the stipulation that committee votes only happen by request of someone at in-person committee meeting (such meetings almost never happen).
  • Reporting Deadline: The House rules include the language around an earlier reporting deadline and rolling deadlines following hearings that the House voted on for the Joint Rules.

PM in the News: “With Mass. House set to vote on its rules, is transparency a priority or a talking point?”

Abigail Pritchard, “With Mass. House set to vote on its rules, is transparency a priority or a talking point?,” New Bedford Light, February 24, 2025.

Jonathan Cohn, the policy director at Progressive Massachusetts, said that this reform would increase efficiency and help supporters of bills know whether their bills are dead or still up for discussion. Most bills die in committee on an unclear timeline, Cohn said.

….

At an action hour on government transparency that Progressive Massachusetts and other organizations hosted Feb. 19, Cohn suggested that the public should have as much time to prepare for a hearing as they need to request time off from work — at least two weeks.

…

Hille and Cohn, of Progressive Massachusetts, credit the growing political movement for transparency with increasing pressure for the proposed rules reforms. Both are hopeful about the House and Senate adopting reforms, but said those can only go so far.

…

Cohn also credits Cambridge’s Evan MacKay with pushing the legislature toward rules reforms. MacKay ran against long-time incumbent Rep. Marjorie Decker last year, losing narrowly after a campaign that criticized the legislature for lack of transparency and consolidation of power. 

“I think that they’re mindful of not wanting to give challengers talking points against them,” Cohn said, “and if that means doing the things that we’re criticizing you for not doing and not making public, I take that as a win.”

New Rules: How Far Did Each Chamber Go in Promoting Transparency?

The 194th session of the Massachusetts General Court began with both Senate President Karen Spilka and Speaker Ron Mariano promising to take up rules reforms in the service of a more accountable, transparent, and efficient legislative process.

It was clear that this was a direct result of years of advocacy from activists who understood that good process and good outcomes go hand in hand (including a broad coalition push at the start of this session to shape the outcome), the wide margin that Question 1 achieved statewide and in every city/town, and the increased media coverage of State House dysfunction.

What are the rules, and why should you care? Legislative rules govern things like who has access to what information, when things need to happen, what happens in the open vs. behind closed doors, and much more. We know from years of following the Legislature that the mega-rich and large corporations can always get behind closed doors, but we, the people, can’t. And such top-down, non-transparent legislating tips the scales away from working people, from marginalized communities, and from the public interest in general.

The Senate passed its proposed changes to the Joint Rules (joint = House and Senate acting together) and its own chamber rules earlier this month. The House did today.

For each chamber, the rules they adopt for themselves (House rules, Senate rules) are now done. But the rules governing them acting together still need further negotiations. When House and Senate differ, they must go to a conference committee to negotiate a compromise. And they haven’t succeeded at this for the Joint Rules for several sessions. With both chambers proposing important reforms, we need to make sure that this session is different.

So what reforms are at stake? Let’s go through them below. (Want to see the text for each? Check out our deeper dive here.)

House vs. Senate: Drafter of Bill Summaries 

The House and Senate both propose requiring bill summaries for every bill in advance of a hearing, but the House wants committee staff to draft the summaries whereas the Senate wants the lead sponsors to. 

House vs. Senate: Hybrid Hearings & In-Person Privileges 

The House and Senate both continue the practice of hybrid hearings, but the House wants to require in-person attendance for committee members and privilege in-person public testimony over that delivered virtually. 

House vs. Senate: Hearing Notice 

The Senate’s proposal would increase the required hearing notice to 5 days as opposed to the current 72 hours, which the House would like to keep. 

House vs. Senate: Making Testimony Public 

Both House and Senate proposals take steps toward making testimony public. The Senate’s proposal intends for testimony to be published on the Legislature’s website, whereas the House proposal is unclear about whether relevant testimony would be published or available upon request. In both cases, there is an acknowledgement that testimony with sensitive information would be redacted. Notably, in the Senate’s own chamber rules, the Senate has expressed an intent to publish testimony regardless of what is decided in the Joint Rules.

House vs. Senate: Committee Votes 

Both the House and Senate proposals endorse the concept of publishing committee votes, provided that the House language does not maintain a distinction between “roll call votes” and “electronic polls.” The House proposal would require that members be provided with redlined versions of the bill prior to a vote, with that markup made publicly available (whether posted or available upon request, though, is unclear). Notably, in the Senate’s own chamber rules, the Senate has expressed an intent to publish its own members’ votes regardless of what is decided in the Joint Rules.

House vs. Senate: Reporting Deadlines 

Both chambers would like to see the reporting deadline for bills moved up from the first Wednesday in February to a date in December: the first Wednesday for the Senate and the third Wednesday for the House. 

The House proposal includes a rolling reporting deadline, with committees required to take action within 60 days of a hearing, with the possibility of a 30-day subsequent extension (and longer with unanimous consent), but not past the third Wednesday in March. 

The Senate proposal would mark bills receiving no action as being given an adverse report; the House proposal would mark them as being sent to study. 

House vs. Senate: Conclusion of Session

Both chambers’ proposals would extend the Legislature’s ability to take votes after the July 31 end date for the formal legislative session. 

Nearly Identical Changes Made in Both 

New in Both: Chamber Privilege over Chamber Bills 

New text in both chambers’ proposals would give greater Senate control over Senate bills and greater House control over House bills. 

No Corresponding Language In Other Chamber’s Proposal 

House (only): Attendance Reports 

The House’s proposed joint rules require a record of attendance at committee hearings, to be published online. 

House (only): Detailed Conference Reports

The House’s proposed joint rules require conference reports to lay out the areas of disagreement and what each chamber fought for. 

Senate (only): Open Conference Committee Meetings 

The Senate proposal guarantees that the first meeting of a conference committee will be fully public. 

Senate (only): Indigenous Leaders

The Senate proposal would require that leaders of Indigenous communities be afforded the same privileges in speaking order as other public officials. 

Senate (only): Time Before Voting on Conference Reports 

The current rules, as reflected in the House language for Joint Rules, state that a conference committee can file a report at 8 pm and vote on it as early as 1 pm the next day. The Senate would require at least one full day in between.

Transparency Action Hour: Next Steps

Thank you so much for joining us last night! We had 140+ people join to learn and take action together—and to keep the momentum going. And we filled up quite a few voice mails. (And if you weren’t able to make it, you were missed!)

Links from last night:

Earlier today, the House released a summary of their proposed rules changes. There are some positive signs, but we are awaiting the full text and will keep you posted. But for now, the important thing is to make sure that YOUR state rep is hearing from YOU.

Don’t forget to call or email (or both!) your state representatives, and to share the ask with your networks! Again, you can find our action guide at https://tinyurl.com/transparencyactionma. Pass this on to family, friends, and neighbors and ask them to take action for transparency too.

2/19: Transparency Action Hour

Voters have said on the ballot countless times that they want to see a more transparent State Legislature, and we know that the top-down, closed-door nature of policymaking empowers the large corporations and special interests that can get their way in, leaving the rest of us out.

Senate President Karen Spilka and Speaker Ron Mariano have both promised to take up rules reform to make for a more transparent and efficient legislative process. Last month, 30+ organizations laid out a set of pro-transparency, pro-participation, pro-democracy reforms that would boost public confidence in the legislative process.

With the Senate rules behind us and the House rules being taken up later this month, where does the campaign stand? Join us for a campaign update and an opportunity to make some calls to make sure that state legislators are hearing from us, their constituents.


RSVP here

Senate Passes Proposal for Joint Rules. Next Up: The House.

On Wednesday and Thursday,, the State Senate debated and then passed their proposed Joint Rules for the session as well as their own chamber rules. Read about their rules changes here.

29 amendments were filed to the Joint Rules proposal in the debate:

  • 15 were rejected without a vote.
  • 4 were adopted without a vote.
  • 3 were withdrawn.

Seven amendments received a recorded vote.

  • 5 to 33 for an amendment from Senate Minority Leader Bruce Tarr (R-Gloucester) to reduce the maximum number of bills per hearing from 50 to 30. The 5 were the Republican caucus.
  • 5 to 33 for an amendment from Senate Minority Leader Bruce Tarr (R-Gloucester) to require at least 48 hours between the filing of a conference committee report (i.e., a compromise bill negotiated between House and Senate to resolve differences) and voting on it. The 5 were the Republican caucus.
  • 6 to 32 for an amendment from Senate Minority Leader Bruce Tarr (R-Gloucester) to allow for minority conference committee reports to be filed (i.e., those who disagree with the consensus bill can present an alternative). Sen. John Keenan (D-Quincy) joined the 5 Republicans.
  • 6 to 32 for an amendment from Senate Minority Leader Bruce Tarr (R-Gloucester) to prevent conference committee reports from being considered if filed within the last 72 hours of the session. Sen. John Keenan (D-Quincy) joined the 5 Republicans.
  • 6 to 32 for an amendment from Senator John Keenan (D-Quincy) to limit the ability of committees to grant extensions to bills past the reporting deadline. Sen. John Keenan (D-Quincy) and the 5 Republicans voted in support
  • 9 to 29 for an amendment from Sen. John Keenan (D-Quincy) to require every conference report to receive a recorded vote. Senators Jamie Eldridge (D-Marlborough), John Keenan (D-Quincy), Liz Miranda (D-Roxbury), and Becca Rausch (D-Needham) joined the 5 Republicans.
  • 38 to 0 for an amendment from Sen. John Keenan (D-Quincy) to extend the ban on members’ selling stocks related to legislation to cover purchases and activity by family members and staff

The House will be taking up their own joint rules package after school vacation week.

The MA Senate’s Got New (Draft) Rules. Let’s Count ‘Em.

When the new legislative session kicked off on January 1, Sen. President Karen Spilka (D-Ashland) expressed interest in taking up a suite of transparency reforms to “build upon the Senate’s commitment to an open and transparent process of legislating.”

The talk about transparency and legislative process reform from both Spilka and Speaker Ron Mariano seemed to be a result of the overwhelming public support for Question 1 last year (i.e., the Auditor’s ballot question about auditing the Legislature) and of the negative press the Legislature got for not finishing on time. In response, a group of 30 organizations called on the House and Senate to adopt a robust package of pro-transparency, pro-democracy, pro-participation reforms.

Yesterday (Thursday, February 6), the Senate released its rules proposals for the 2025-2026 session. These rules both include and build upon past proposals from the Senate.

The Senate, for example, has supported making committee votes and testimony public since 2019. Following the 2016 update to the public records law, the House and Senate established a commission studying whether the Legislature and Governor should remain fully exempt from public records law. The commission dissolved with no agreement, but the Senate members of the commission released their own proposals, including these measures.

However, the new rules attempt to bypass the intransigence from the House by requiring that the votes Senators take in joint committees, such as whether or not to advance a bill out of committee, be posted online. The Senate already does this for Senate-only committees. The Senate’s proposed rules would also require that written or in-person testimony received by Senate members of a joint committee be provided publicly online, with an email or online portal established to facilitate this.

The Senate’s proposed rules would also direct the Senate Ways and Means Committee to make bill summaries available online for legislation reported favorably out of the committee. This makes a useful resource already available to all senators available to everyone. Legislative language is often inscrutable given the jargon involved with changing the Massachusetts General Laws, and bill summaries help regular people get a better sense of what is happening in the legislative process.

The Senate also proposed several changes to the joint rules (i.e., the rules that govern House-Senate committees):

  • Joint Hearings But Not Joint Votes: There has been buzz in recent weeks about whether or not joint committees would end up splitting into separate House and Senate committees with separate hearings, etc. The Senate’s proposal keeps joint hearings (saving advocates and the public the labor of having to attend twice as many hearings) but allows for Senate members to vote on Senate bills and House members to vote on House bills. As the House outnumbers the Senate in joint committees, House opposition can lead to committee stalemates or otherwise slow bills that Senators wish to advance.
  • Increased Hearing Notice: The Senate’s proposed joint rules would guarantee five days (one business week) of notice before a hearing as opposed to the current 72 hours. We have advocated for a two-week notice (given how many people need that much lead time to take time off work), but this is still an improvement and is something the Senate has advocated for in the past.
  • An Earlier Reporting Deadline: The Senate’s proposed joint rules would require joint committees to report bills out by the first Wednesday in December of the first year of a session as opposed to the current February. This would allow for year one to focus on hearing bills and year two to focus on passing them, pushing back on backlogs and bottlenecks.
  • Open Conference Committee Meetings: The Senate’s proposed joint rules would require the full first meeting of a conference committee to be open to the public and the media. This would bring more transparency to the process and create a better sense of what each chamber is fighting for, although all of the meetings should be public — not just the first.
  • Conference Committee Report Time: The Senate’s proposed joint rules would require a full calendar day between when a conference committee report is filed and when the report is acted upon to allow legislators and members of the public more time to review legislation before votes are taken. Currently, they can vote just a few hours after text is released, all but guaranteeing that few people will have read it.
  • Bill Summaries in Joint Committees: The Senate’s proposed joint rules would require bill sponsors to submit comprehensive bill summaries to the joint committees holding hearings on the legislation, to be made publicly available with the bill. This helps members of the public, the press, and the rank-and-file better understand what proposed bills would do.

These changes would all make a more transparent, inclusive, and informed legislative process. However, one other change would normalize recent bad habits. The Senate’s proposed joint rules would allow for conference reports (the compromise text negotiated by the House and Senate when they differ on a bill) to be filed and debated after the July 31st deadline for formal session. This allows for more work to be pushed after election season and after legislators are regularly meeting, meaning less input and less accountability.