By Act on Mass intern and endorsement committee member, Oscar Gillette!
Conference Committees Waiting Until After Election Day Disempowers Voters
If you are reading this, I’m sure you are aware that next Tuesday is an important day. While voters around the country will be casting extremely important votes for the future of the country, Massachusetts’ voters will have to evaluate their state legislators and state senators with incomplete information. Thirteen pieces of legislation remain in conference committees, where just 6 members of House and Senate leadership meet behind closed doors to determine the final versions of bills that have already passed their respective chambers. Leadership’s choice to hold those negotiations until after Election Day shields them from accountability for the decisions they make and leaves constituents to vote before they know how their representatives will resolve some major issues facing the state.
The Legislature made this “lame duck” lawmaking possible when it adopted a new set of joint rules on June 26, 2025. The relevant change appears in Joint Rule 12A. Previously, the rule required formal legislative business to conclude by July 31 in the second year of session. This ensured that voters in the primary and the general would know what the legislature did and could factor it into their votes. Under new rules, bills must only be in “conference committee” for negotiations by July 31, allowing leadership to leave important policy questions until after voters have made their decisions and lost their leverage.
The current conference committee docket lists thirteen matters without a final agreement. They cover primary care, campaign finance, state government transparency, pet safety, teacher benefits, economic development, health care, workplace violence, energy policy, environmental borrowing, data privacy, student learning, higher education and supplemental appropriations. These are consequential decisions, and yet, the lawmakers negotiating them will have the opportunity to set state policy without worrying about any backlash from voters.
Indeed, the decisions made in the conference committee are very important. For example, the House’s version of the “legislative records” bill would undermine the voter approved audit, exempt legislative contracts and procurements, while the Senate version does not do those things. Because the conference committee will be choosing the final text of that bill after election day, they will not have to consider how voters feel about it when choosing. In another example, the differences between the two chambers’ versions of the teacher retirement benefits bill (S.3109) could mean tens of thousands of dollars for retired teachers. I would imagine that those teachers would like to see the conference committee’s decision before voting.
The Legislature presented the rules package as a way to improve efficiency, transparency and public access while giving lawmakers more time to accomplish meaningful policy work. Yet, voters have a right to judge their representatives’ work before deciding whether those representatives deserve another term.
The “legislative records” debate offers a particularly troubling example. On November 3, voters will decide Question 1 (we strongly encourage you to vote yes!), which would bring most records held by the Legislature and governor’s office under the state’s public records law. Meanwhile, a conference committee is still working on the Legislature’s own proposal regarding public records. WBUR reported on October 7 that lawmakers could reach an agreement after the election, potentially creating a conflict between the law voters approve and the alternative legislation moving through the State House. Voters could approve a major transparency reform and then watch the Legislature immediately undermine them once the election is over. The current rules make that sequence possible.
There is a basic accountability question here. Legislators remain in office after Election Day, and they are responsible for the decisions they make throughout their terms. Voters, however, have a limited opportunity to respond to those decisions through elections. When the Legislature schedules major votes for the period after November 3, it weakens that relationship. Incumbents can ask for another term while negotiations over significant legislation are still underway, and their constituents may not know the final agreements or how their representatives voted on them until after casting their ballots.
The Legislature chose to create this arrangement. Both chambers approved the revised rules. Giving lawmakers more time may make their jobs easier, but it also gives legislative leadership and conference committee members even more control over when important decisions reach the floor.
Massachusetts has a Legislature that already struggles with transparency and accountability. The fight over the auditor’s attempt to examine legislative spending, the state’s long-standing public records exemptions, and the difficulty of getting recorded votes on the floor have all contributed to that problem. Next session the legislature should restore the old deadline for finalizing conference committee decisions.
While our legislature is fundamentally broken, enthusiastic citizen participation has shown its ability to improve it, and transparency is on the ballot. Last session the legislature adopted public committee votes for the first time. If you live in one of the districts where you can vote for one of our public policy questions on stipend reform, you should do so. If you can vote for one of our endorsed candidates Persis Yu, Lorena Betts, or Ravi Simon, you should do so. And if you, like me, are in none of those districts, you can still vote for a more transparent and accountable government by voting yes on 1, no on 3, yes on 4, and no on 5.
The choice of legislative leadership to leave several key choices to be made after election day reflects a desire to protect incumbents and disempower voters. This displays the importance of having fair and transparent legislative rules. Act on Mass will be very involved in the rules making process for 2027 and 2028, but we can only have an impact if people buy in. Join us, and help fight for a legislature that includes the public.