Open Meeting Law
An Act relative to the open meeting law
ON THIS PAGE:
- About the bill
- Bill history
- Advocates
What this bill would do:
- This bill would extend that democratic privilege to constituents wishing to monitor legislative proceedings of the State House
Why we need it:
Open Meeting Law (OML) is a policy already in place for the vast majority of governing bodies in the state. OML promotes transparency across a number of state-level meetings and to include the general public in the decision-making processes, the legislature has historically exempted itself from OML.
16
years in consideration by the legislature
8
times killed by the legislature
The Logistics
- Under existing OML provisions, the public is permitted to attend meetings of public bodies besides the Legislature, namely all 351 municipal governments in the state
Does your legislator support Open Meeting Law?
Bill History
The legislature’s website makes it extremely difficult to track bills from session to session, so we have compiled the complete bill history here. Each time the bill is killed, it is highlighted in red text and the people or committee to blame are linked where possible.
194th Session: 2025-2026
January 2025: Bill reintroduced as H.3426
193rd Session: 2023-2024
June 2024: “Sent to Study” by Joint Committee on State Administration and Regulatory Oversight, H.4771
July 2023: Hearing scheduled for 07/26/2023
January 2023: Bill reintroduced as H.3121
192nd Session: 2021-2022
September 2022: “Sent to Study” by Joint Committee on State Administration and Regulatory Oversight, H.4969
October 2021: Hearing scheduled for 10/26/2021
March 2021: Bill reintroduced as H.3162
191st Session: 2019-2020
November 2020: “Sent to Study” by Joint Committee on State Administration and Regulatory Oversight, H.5103
June 2019: Hearing scheduled 06/10/2019
January 2019: Bill reintroduced as H.2715
190th Session: 2017-2018
189th Session: 2015-2016
March 2016: “Sent to Study” by Joint Committee on State Administration and Regulatory Oversight, H.4102
November 2015: Hearing scheduled for 11/09/2015
January 2015: Bill reintroduced as H.2753
188th Session: 2013-2014
June 2014: “Sent to Study” by Joint Committee on the Judiciary, Study Order H.4143
October 2013: Hearing scheduled for 10/15/2013
January 2013: Bill filed as H.2817
187th Session: 2011-2012
November 2012: “Sent to Study” by Joint Committee on the Judiciary, H.4519
December 2011: Hearing scheduled for 09/20/2011
January 2011: Bill reintroduced as H.2594
186th Session: 2009-2010
September 2010: “Sent to Study” by Joint Committee on State Administration and Regulatory Oversight, S.2615
January 2009: Bill introduced as S.1458
Advocacy Organizations
Our allies leading the fight for this bill
