Last week, the Massachusetts House voted down three common sense transparency amendments to its rules package.

These amendments were simple good government proposals, requiring that...

• Representatives be given a reasonable amount of time to read the final language of any bill they’re voting on
• Representatives be given a reasonable amount of time to read any amendment submitted on the floor that they’ll be voting on
• Hearing testimony (for/against) a bill and all votes taken in committee to be publicly available.

Yet they all failed, as most rank-and-file Democrats voted with House Leadership against them.

If you've reached out to your representatives since, they've probably given you a number of excuses. Spoiler: They're not very good ones.

Former Sierra Club lobbyist Phil Sego was once quoted as saying, “Don’t mistake what happens in [the Massachusetts State House] for democracy.” Our legislative process is deeply flawed and designed to avoid public accountability.

Yesterday, your representative had a chance to take the first step toward changing that. Amendments were introduced that would have required:

• Representatives be given a reasonable amount of time to read the final language of any bill they’re voting on
• Representatives be given a reasonable amount of time to read any amendment submitted on the floor that they’ll be voting on
• Hearing testimony (for/against) a bill and all votes taken in committee to be publicly available.

The Massachusetts General Court is the second oldest deliberative body of the world. It’s time for it to start living up to such a stature.

Opaque processes and procedures are the standard operating procedure in the Legislature, leaving the public—and even many legislators—in the dark while monied interests exert sway behind closed doors. And an over-centralization of power encourages a culture of quiescence and retaliation, discouraging open debate on major issues—a problem especially acute in the Massachusetts House of Representatives.

But it doesn’t have to be this way.

Real reform will be impossible without changes to both rules and norms.

And with the MA House set to vote on its rules for the 191st legislative session tomorrow, we have a few good ideas about measures the House could adopt.

The 190th legislative session has been off to a slow start on Beacon Hill. Beyond the pay raise, and the budget process, the Legislature has not been doing much in the way of, well, legislating.

One small bit of progress was the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, which passed the House unanimously last month. The bill requires employers to provide “reasonable accommodation” for pregnant women and nursing mothers (such as more frequent breaks, less strenuous duties, and the ability to sit down on the job) provided that they don’t cause “significant difficulty or expense.”

Scorecards from 189th Legislative Session, House and Senate are finalized. Compare legislators’ last session records with your values and the district’s. See where there’s room for improvement or need for a thank you! 

Engaged democracy doesn’t end at the doorknock!

To win on our big issues--such as single-payer health care, a living wage, a stable climate, a robust public infrastructure, a healthy democracy, among many others--we know we must elect politicians who align with our values.

To get progressive champions elected, we’ve learned the mechanics of grassroots campaigning -- to knock on doors, host house parties, make phone calls, enter data from sign in sheets, cut lists, recruit volunteers, GOTV.

It feels like victory when our progressive candidates win -- but our work must not end there.

We also have to hold them accountable to the principles and goals we share.

And if they aren’t fighting for our progressive goals, we need to organize and mobilize again. As presidents like FDR and Obama have said, we need to make our elected officials do the things that are difficult.

Words and Actions

Legislators’ votes are an obvious means to assess how hard they are working for our big, urgent long-term goals. But “How did my State Legislator vote on these issues I care about?” is, in Massachusetts, not easy to find out. If we don’t know, how can we hold them accountable?

The new Trump administration is rolling back progressive achievements and pushing a reactionary, racist agenda at a breakneck pace. The moral urgency of our goals has never been more acute.

At least not when it comes to Trump's Cabinet nominees. In their rush to confirm, they have skipped over some crucial steps of the vetting process. If we don't make them slow down and do their jobs properly, we may end up with a Cabinet who will serve only themselves, not the American people.

On November 8, almost 54 percent of voters in the Commonwealth voted to legalize recreational marijuana, an important step in advancing social and racial justice and combating over-policing and mass incarceration. However, yesterday, in a special session, without any public hearings or public notice, 7 legislators were able to postpone the opening date for recreational marijuana stores by six months, creating a limbo situation in which possession is legal but retail is not.

Jonathan Cohn is a member of Progressive Massachusetts and co-founder of No Boston 2024, a group that helped to defeat Boston’s bid for the 2024 Summer Olympics. No Boston 2024 used public records requests to bring new information to the public debate and to shed light on what was happening behind closed doors. They have three requests still pending.

Whether or not you were in favor of the Olympics, this work by citizen activists was an impressive victory, and learning from their grassroots organizing is key for future battles to build a more progressive commonwealth. Jonathan explains below how his experiences highlight the urgent need for public records law reform. Follow Jonathan on Twitter: @JonathanCohn.

TAKE ACTION TODAY TO PUSH FOR PUBLIC RECORDS REFORM -- TIME IS RUNNING OUT

The saying goes that sunlight is the best disinfectant. And we saw this clearly with Boston’s bid for the 2024 Olympics.

When decision-making is happening behind closed doors, public records requests offer citizens a way to pry open the door. By submitting public records requests (and having dogged follow-up), we were able to bring to light the conflicts of interest, double-talk, and misinformation in how the bid was being presented and sold to the public, and the ways in which public and private were increasingly becoming intertwined.

During this process, however, I learned almost as much about how broken our public records law is as I did about the Olympic bid.

Here are a few problems I regularly encountered in my quest to pry open this door:

The 189th Legislative Session is halfway over, and now’s the time to check in on how our representatives on Beacon Hill are doing: Have they taken action on our progressive priorities? We’ll be releasing our 189th Session scorecards, so far, soon. (prior scorecards can be found at progressivemass.com/scorecard)

But we can only “score” votes that ARE taken -- and right now, important bills are being stalled -- we need your help to change that.

While we can’t change the Beacon Hill culture, not yet, at least, we can push legislators to hurry up and pass some important transformative bills -- before they go into election year “safe mode.”

Public records reform, a fundamental progressive priority, is at risk of stalling out. Government documents and records are key to government accountability and citizen engagement with the civic process. But access to these records in Massachusetts is maddeningly and shamefully retrograde, an affront to democracy itself. 

Yesterday, at the State House, a determined and united group of progressive legislators and advocates, bolstered by thousands of petitions, letters, post cards and calls from constituents, made a disastrous welfare reform bill much better than it started out.

And you were a part of that remarkable effort.

We still have some substantial work to do – in conference committee – but many are committed to continuing the fight.

Dozens of legislators signed on to Amendment #74 – designed to address key bad provisions.

Advocates remained in the building from early morning until debate concluded after 9 pm – providing key input and even draft language.

Many legislators made impassioned speeches on the floor of the house – calling out Republicans for their mean-spiritedness.

A core group spent the day negotiating with leadership – and winning many of the changes we wanted.

We have a long way to go yet as a Progressive movement – and yesterday we were on defense with what is still a disappointing welfare bill.  But we are also a long way – in spirit, determination and unity – from the defeat on revenue.

It’s time to build on this momentum and go on offense – with minimum wage, earned sick time, single payor health care, free secondary education – and yes, eventually, new revenue.  When I suggested that we would eventually be there to “An Act to Invest” co-sponsor Representative Jim O’Day, he smiled and gave me (us) the thumbs up.

What Contributed to this Success?