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