By Act on Mass intern and endorsement committee member, Oscar Gillette!
Constituents knowing how their legislator votes is a fundamental building block of the Democratic process. But with leadership deciding the outcomes of votes in our Legislature, simply getting a recorded vote takes a great deal of effort.
If we had a functioning and democratic legislature, we would have a system where, if the legislative leadership wanted to kill a bill or amendment, they would have to call each legislator, and convince them to vote no. We, the voters, could then debate that issue and replace legislators whose votes we didn’t like. Because of this, legislators would be more scared to go against their district than to go against leadership.
That is not how things work in Massachusetts. Most decisions are made by what is called a “voice vote.” Theoretically, in a voice vote, the presiding officer asks legislators to say “Aye” or “Nay,” and then judges which was louder. In reality, the presiding officer almost never actually pauses after calling for ayes and nays, and just announces the result that leadership decided. This protects members from having to take firm positions on anything (which could give ammunition to potential challengers) and it ensures that leadership will get the result they want. The presiding officer calling for “Ayes” and “Nays” is just a formality: in fact, Senate Pro Tempore William Brownsberger recently made a joke of pretending to wait for members to voice their votes. We discussed this joke in the August 11th Scoop.
The prevalence of “voice votes” is a tool of incumbent protection and power consolidation: two things that are present throughout the Massachusetts’ legislature’s rules and norms. If you are a concerned constituent who wants a particular amendment to pass, how can you go about making your voice heard in any way that matters? Sure you can call your legislator and ask them to support it, but unless your legislator is in leadership their opinion on the amendment will never be publicly asked and will certainly not affect the outcome. Your legislator can tell you that they support the amendment to make you happy, and ten minutes later tell the next caller that they oppose the amendment. When decisions are made by voice vote, constituents have no power, and legislators face no accountability.
So how do we end up with so many voice votes? In order to secure a recorded roll call vote in the house, one-tenth of total elected members must physically stand in just a short period of time to demand one. Most states which have a threshold for a roll-call vote use a proportion of those present, which makes a lower threshold. In the house of at least fourteen state legislatures, only one, two, or three legislators are required to demand a roll call vote. In the Massachusetts house, unless a large number of seats are vacant, sixteen reps are needed to reach the one-tenth elected threshold. For comparison, in New Hampshire, whose statehouse has 2.5 times more members than ours, and the most members of any statehouse in the country, only eleven reps are needed to demand a roll-call vote.
In the Massachusetts Senate, in order to demand a roll call vote, you need one fifth of the members present (eight, if every seat is filled and everyone is present), or the number of members of the minority party (currently five), whichever is less. In some ways this rule is slightly better than the house’s rule, as it is flexible to poorly attended sessions. However, in sessions where every senator is in attendance, it technically sets a higher proportional threshold than the house’s rule. The senates of at least nineteen states have a rule requiring only one, two, or three senators to stand to demand a roll call vote.
Either way, this threshold is prohibitively large in both chambers. It is a larger threshold than most states have, and our state legislature especially needs a smaller threshold, given that we have so many other rules that consolidate power to leadership. This consolidation makes it a huge risk for any legislator to stand against leadership in demanding that their colleagues’ votes be made public. When leadership kills a bill or amendment that is popular with constituents on a voice vote, a legislator who stands to demand a roll call vote is vulnerable to losing their committee positions and their leadership stipends. Other legislators are unlikely to join, in part because they are scared of leadership, but also because they don’t want their votes recorded. However, once a roll call is called, a legislator who fears upsetting leadership may vote against leadership, because in a public vote, the fear of upsetting their constituents kicks in. This makes roll call votes a powerful tool.
Legislators should be more responsive to the opinions of their constituents than those of their caucus leaders: that is an absolutely necessary condition to have democratic outcomes. But that only happens when their votes are made public. Public access to information empowers constituents, transparency→power. We need to make it easier for rank-and-file legislators to demand roll call votes in order to make roll call votes more common. In the house, it should take only four representatives to demand a roll-call vote, and in the senate, it should take only two.
Some legislative leaders (who will find any reason to oppose transparency measures) claim that roll call votes are inefficient. Thanks to the Legislature’s fancy electronic voting machines, conducting a roll-call vote does not take more than a few minutes, and it is a necessary function of democracy. Furthermore, these same legislative leaders have led Massachusetts to be consistently ranked as the least efficient state legislature in the country. Legislators respond to pressure, and transparency is necessary to build public power, so it is no surprise that the legislature that received the Society of Professional Journalist’s Black Hole Award for lack of transparency would be so ineffective. The few minutes the Massachusetts statehouse saves by not conducting roll-call votes clearly do not make it more efficient or effective.
This upcoming January both chambers will undergo their rules debate, and Act on Mass will be advocating for a series of rules in those demands. If you want to get involved in this fight, sign up here. The rules debate is a unique opportunity to influence the legislature and build public power. It is a great avenue to get involved!