10 Problems on Beacon Hill

In 2017, shortly after he was inaugurated, Donald Trump initiated a series of draconian and racist immigration policies: attempting to enact a Muslim ban, separating children from their families, and stepping up deportations.

Progressive activists in Massachusetts came together with one voice to protest at Logan Airport and elsewhere against these policies, and united behind the Safe Communities Act — a bill which would have prevented the creation of a Muslim registry and limited State Police from supporting Trump’s deportation machine.

The Safe Communities Act got 81 co-sponsors after filing, and when the Committee on Public Safety & Homeland Security held a hearing on the bill, hundreds of people packed the chamber, demanding swift action.

Despite the initial swiftness, it took a total of 12 months after the hearing in June 2017 until the committee decided what to do with the bill in June 2018. The committee chose to “send it to study” and six months later, on Dec 31st, the committee failed to file anything. 

There was no report.

Following the two-year long process, vulnerable immigrant populations received no protections, and the press and public got:

• No record of who on the committee voted to kill the bill
• No reason given by the committee why they killed the bill
• No report, indicating what might be changed and lead to passage next time

It is unknown how many immigrants in Massachusetts were directly impacted by the pure inaction in our legislature. As of the end of formal sessions in July 2024, the Safe Communities Act has continued to languish, with no clarity as to who is killing the bill or why. 

This story does not only highlight a way in which federal legislation and actions can affect state and local governments. This story also shows how the lack of transparency in the Massachusetts state government can lead to inaction that can put communities at risks that fail to be remediated even today.  

Like in the federal government, there is a hierarchy of power within the Massachusetts State House. 

In the federal government, there is the president (executive branch), the U.S. Senate, and the House of Representatives (legislative branch). If it helps to think of the Massachusetts state government in similar terms, our Governor – Maura Healey – is like our state’s president (executive), and we have our own Senate and House of Representatives (legislative) who all work together to pass legislation each session. Our governor, like the president, is part of the Executive branch of the government. This means that Healey, like Joe Biden, has the power to sign bills into law, has veto power over legislation, and is elected to 4-year terms. 

The State Senate and State Representatives, like the U.S. Senate and U.S. House of Representatives, make up the legislative branch of the government. The bicameral, or two-chambered, legislature has the power to draft bills and pass legislation, or laws. 

This means that along the path that a bill takes to become a law, there is room for transparency to become a back-burner issue, leaving Bay Staters at a loss when it comes to the happenings of the state legislature. 

Here are the top 10 issues with the Massachusetts State House:

1. No Record of Votes (floor & committee)

You would think that when your state rep votes - You would know how they voted. They represent YOU after all. But usually you don’t. Massachusetts is one of the least transparent and least accountable states in the US.

If you want to know who supported and who opposed the Safe Communities Act (SCA), you are out of luck.

Similarly, when the legislature passed Criminal Justice Reform in 2017, they included a “Blue Lives Matter” amendment drafted by Republicans and opposed by Criminal justice advocates that created a new mandatory minimum sentence. But good luck figuring out if your Rep voted for it. There’s no record.

Whether on the floor like the Blue Lives Matter amendment or in committee like SCA, the only time they record votes is through a roll call, which is an exception to the norm.

A roll call vote isnot easy to get. The only way to get a Roll Call on the floor is for 16 Reps to stand at the same time and demand it. And it’s fast. The Reps have mere seconds to jump to their feet with 15 other colleagues. Hope nobody needs a bathroom break or they’ll miss their chance. In committees, rules require at least two members to demand a roll call and it can only work on certain types of votes.

The roll call process is the exception to normal voting procedure: voice voting.  In a voice vote, the chair simply declares the outcome of the vote by how many aye's and nay's they hear. There is no record of how wide the margin was or who voted which way. And in most cases, nobody says a word, the chair just decides what the outcome would be, based on what he or she is told by leadership.

In committees, it's extremely common to "poll" members via email with a 15 minute deadline. During the January 30th, 2019 Rules debate, several lawmakers spoke about how they routinely had to pull over into the breakdown lane of a highway in order to get on their phone and vote: Or else they'd lose their chance!

This is not democracy in any meaningful sense.

2. Limited Information on the Website

In theory, the state legislature’s website should be easy to navigate for constituents to find important information about the bills in session, the changes they’ve gone through, and who has supported them. But in practice, much of that information seems to be lost in the interface. This makes for a website that doesn’t promote a whole lot of transparency. 

This issue is not only present in terms of bills that are in current sessions. Bills from old sessions are also in dire need of updates in order to be not only accurate, but easy for constituents to search for and read about. 

For example, if you go to the legislature’s website and look at the pages for the Healthy Youth Act (H.544 and S.268), you’ll find that the information regarding its status in the House has not been updated since October, 2023. However, if you look at the status of the bill in the Senate, you’ll find a bit more information on the bill until you reach February, 2024. You’ll then have to follow a link to see new drafts and amendments that all took place in that same month. Aside from these amendments, there are no updates on the bill’s status. In short: you have to click around a lot.

Visitors to the website will also notice that there is no easy way to see if a bill is brand new or if it has been redrafted and re-introduced session after session. The Healthy Youth Act has been filed every single legislative session since 2011. You read that right — it has been over a decade that the Healthy Youth Act has been filed, redrafted, or reported out of committee, only to be repeatedly “sent to study” and killed. 

Even the links to amendments do not give a lot of information. You can’t see by clicking anywhere on this page how the Reps voted. Instead, you must navigate to the page of the House clerk, go to the Journals page, and select the correct session. Then you can pull up a PDF copy of who voted and how on the amendment. 

Not to mention that looking for old drafts of the bill that have been sent to study multiple sessions are not very easy to find on the website. Especially when the “Search the Legislature…” search box tends to be finicky when deciding when it will or won’t work. 

While the Healthy Youth Act is just one example of the subpar status of the legislature’s website, there are countless other idiosyncrasies that prevent constituents from easily accessing information on the happenings within the State House. Without access to the necessary information to assess whether a representative or senator is truly carrying out the will of the people who elected them into office, transparency is lacking on the legislature’s website along with the other areas on this list and beyond. 

3. “Sent to Study” is a euphemism for killing a bill

Session after session, we see popular progressive bills die in our state legislature, without any action. This is even the fate of policies codified in the party platform of the Massachusetts Democratic Party, like same day voter registration, or public committee votes. Upon investigation, these bills are almost always “sent to study,” a convoluted and opaque process that shields our legislators from progress and accountability and allows them to quietly kill bills. 

When news reports on the bill reference “a study,”a voter might think that the legislature is actually doing some investigation, hearing expert testimony, and even doing analysis of the implications of a proposal. The polite language hides what’s really going on though, since practically every time a bill is “sent to study,” there is never an actual study or report on the bill. So what’s really going on here?

Before a bill can come before the House or Senate for a full vote, it gets sent to a committee for preliminary consideration. There are three different types of committees in the legislature – House, Senate, and Joint committees. The House and Senate committees only have members from their corresponding chamber, but the Joint committees have members from both chambers of the legislature. Joint committees are where the bulk of legislating happens. 

During a committee vote, the committees have three choices:

1. Report it favorably: rule that the bill “ought to pass” and pass it along to the next step in lawmaking (rare)
2. Report it adversely: rule that the bill “ought NOT to pass” and kill it (even more rare)
3. Send it to Study: rule that a bill be studied further and reported on by a later date, and pretend it might still pass. However, the vast majority of the time, no study is ever done, no report is ever produced, and sending a bill to study is a euphemism for killing the bill (fairly common)

For a sense of how often each of these options are exercised: of the 275 items that the Committee on Public Safety & Homeland Security reported during 2017-2018, they only reported a single bill adversely. (0.36%). The Joint Committee on Housing reported none of the 165 bills it considered adversely. (0.00%).

Voters would be better served by Committees actually exercising their power to vote bills up or down and going on the record supporting or opposing certain bills. There are bills introduced by conservative Republicans who you would expect the legislature to kill, yet they aren’t. Why are legislators shirking their duty?

Perhaps it is because it only takes less than 50 words to kill a bill!

The catch here is that co-sponsors of bills – or legislators that support a bill and present it for consideration – do not always vote favorably for those bills during committee votes. 

The bill to Prevent Wage Theft (H.1868 & S.1158), which has plenty of co-sponsors and should pass easily in both the House and Senate given the Democrats’ supermajority, has faced pushback despite its popularity. Representatives have made it a habit to cosponsor bills that they had no intention of ever advocating for or voting in favor of when push comes to shove. That’s why the Act to Prevent Wage Theft has had over a supermajority of co-sponsors and has never come to a floor vote. 

A reason for the lack of  action to pass the bill in both chambers stems from the lack of transparency and accountability that occurs in committees and during committee votes. 

4. Committee Reports - no info!

When a committee makes a decision on a bill, they do so on the basis of many hours of expert and public testimony, documents that committee staff compile, and discussions on the committee.

Yet when a bill is reported, the committee doesn’t include any of that. In other states like California, the committee report includes a list of who testified about legislation and whether they supported or opposed it. They think their residents deserve to know if, for example, a healthcare insurance executive testified against singlepayer healthcare, or if a Senior Executive at Exxon testified against a bill to tackle climate change.

In Massachusetts, all this information is diligently compiled by the committee staff, and then put in a secret file somewhere instead of being published.

The public deserves to know what information led a committee to decide one way or another.

Additionally, when the committee advances or kills legislation, they don’t have to give a reason. When the Safe Communities Act was killed (by “sending to study”), there was a 7 line study order that made no reference to the reason for the bill’s failure.

We don't know why the 19 member committee voted to kill the bill. We don't have any public report on who testified against the bill​.

5. ​Committee Hearings and Secret Committee Votes

During committee hearings, constituents are able to speak in favor of or against bills that are being considered by committees. These committees then take what they hear their constituents argue during the hearings and decide whether certain bills “ought to pass”, “ought not to pass”, or are “sent to study.”

Or do they?

According to a study conducted by The Climate and Development Lab at the Institute at Brown for Environment and Society, this is not always that case. In fact, many important bills that are considered by committees actually result in decisions that go directly against popular testimony from the public.  

In this study, figure 2 shows the amount of support that climate-friendly bills get during public testimony. Individual testimony coming from constituents is 9-to-1 in favor of environmentalist legislation and makes up the majority of testimony that is delivered. The opposition for these bills is comparatively miniscule, so it would only make sense for clean energy and climate legislation to be passed by legislators. However, this is not the case.   

That same study found that the utilities lobby (think Eversource and National Grid) actually have distinctly better success rates of passing their legislation. Why is that? 

“Of the 245 climate and energy bills introduced over a six year period, only 43 made it out of committee to a floor vote. Nearly every committee that determined those outcomes voted in secret, leaving little opportunity for the public to hold legislators accountable for voting against climate action. Bills all went through the powerful and obscure Ways and Means Committees and then conference committees, where they were drastically rewritten.​

Furthermore, all of the votes on climate and clean energy happened via voice vote, so at no step of the process was any individual senator’s or representative’s position on a bill recorded.

The committee votes that determine the bulk of legislative outcomes in the state, beyond occuring in secret, also happen under tight control by legislative leadership. The House Speaker determines who is on each committee, along with the budgeting process, party campaign funds, and the flow of information. As one interviewee put it, “It does seem that the House is a dictatorship and not a democracy.”​

6. Rapid Action (no time to read)

In contrast to the long waits that bills can suffer in hearings, when the Speaker wants to take action on a bill, they can move it incredibly quickly.

In 2018, the so-called “Grand Bargain” bill to raise the minimum wage had been held in committee for months as activists advocated for passage. Then, suddenly on June 20th, the Ways & Means committee reported out a new version of the bill, and the Speaker ensured that the bill was taken up and passed the same day. Less than 24 hours is not sufficient time for Reps to read a new draft of a 38-page law dealing with a number of complicated issues.

It’s not sufficient time for legislators to consider which amendments they want to file to strengthen the legislation and seek support from their colleagues on those votes.

Remember, to get a recorded vote on any amendment, you need to have 10% of the body, 16 members, stand in a 5 second window to demand roll call.When a bill is rammed through the chamber in less than 24 hours you have no hope of making meaningful amendments.

There were only 5 amendments filed on this bill on June 20th, and only 1 of them was adopted: An amendment written by the chair of the Ways & Means committee, who had just reported out the bill earlier that day. His amendment? Technical fixes to the language of the bill he had reported out in a rush earlier to ensure the language the Reps were voting on passed legal muster.

Forget about meaningfully impacting legislation passed in such a rush. Most reps didn’t have time to read to bill and understand what they were voting on!

In Jan 2019, Jonathan Hecht attempted to pass a new rule in the House that Reps be given 72 hours to read legislation before voting on it. Leadership spoke against this rule and defeated it, ensuring that Reps continue to be in the dark on what they’ve voting on in many cases.

Not only do Reps not know what they are voting on – constituents don’t have the time to look into and speak on behalf of legislation with such short notice. That’s why Act on Mass helped to create the People’s House Campaign to reform our legislature. In 2021, we presented two amendments to the House Rules that would have required at least 48 hours, or at least 72 hours to review legislation before coming to a vote. The former was unsuccessful, receiving a mere 39 votes in favor. The amendment for 72 hours never came to a vote and was killed by leadership.

 7. Vanishing Amendments

Because bills are often killed in committee, it's a necessity for our legislators to try to advance bills via amendment to other bills, oftentimes through the budget, one of the only laws the legislature is legally required to pass each session. The Senate attempted to pass part of the Safe Communities Act through a budget amendment, for example.

After a bill is put in the Order of the Day, meaning it will come up for a vote the next day, there is a certain time period, sometimes very brief, during which legislators can submit amendments, and then they can "co-sponsor" the amendments of their colleagues.​

Unfortunately, it's common practice for leadership to take electeds one-by-one into closed offices and demand that they withdraw their amendments.

Now, it would sometimes make sense for an amendment to be withdrawn, if for example someone else submitted the same amendment and it passed.But in most cases, this is a method of leadership ensuring that issues they don't support don't come up for a vote by the full House.

During the 2017 Criminal Justice Reform debate, 82.8% of all amendments were withdrawn. Very few of them were passed by other means. 

Another way amendments can “vanish” is through the consolidation process. This is where leadership takes all the amendments filed to a bill (this could be in the thousands for the budget, for example) and categorizes them into consolidated amendments. 

Let’s consider this example: the summary of consolidated amendment A says it contains amendments 1-6. But when you look into the actual text of consolidated amendment A, it only contains 2, 4, and 5. Who chose that? Leadership. And of course, it was behind closed doors. When this happens, we say amendments 1, 3, and 6 were “consolidated away” meaning it looks like they were considered, but in reality, they just vanished behind closed doors. 

 Consolidated amendments only get one vote, meaning that it can be an “all or nothing” result. They  are typically seen as pre-approved by leadership, and therefore are expected to be voted on favorably, despite often lacking key issues. In practice, consolidated amendments usually pass unanimously or near-unanimously.

8. Vanishing Committee Assignments

Above, we outlined that bills mostly die in committee. The committee chair enforces what leadership wants and won't let meaningful bills come up for a vote.But what happens if a committee chair decides to advance a bill that leadership doesn't support?

They are brought into the same closed-door office meetings that happen all too often, and the implication is that if the right outcome doesn't happen, the chair might lose their committee chairmanship.

Losing a chairmanship means you lose the  stipend leadership gives you for being in that position. You could also lose your fancy office and be shunnedto the basement. Leadership can even force you to have less staff, a worse parking spot, or be socially and professionally alienated within the walls of the State House. .

Think this sounds far-fetched? It's not.

In 2017, Rep Russell Holmes was stripped of his committee vice chairmanship after making public comments mildly critical of the Speaker (which is definitely not a coincidence). 

By standing up to leadership in ways that align with the wishes of their constituents, legislators run the risk of not only losing the little influence they have over legislation, but risk losing large portions of their salaries that are already pretty low.   

9. Follow the Leader

There aren’t many votes recorded in the Massachusetts House, but if you look at the data as it exists, you’ll find something striking.

The vast majority of Democratic representatives vote the same as the Speaker of the House does 90%-100% of the time.

In the context of the Massachusetts State house, it makes sense that the House Speaker or Senate President could wield so much power without others in the State House putting them in check. If a bill is already on the floor, there is an assumption that leadership wanted it there. And if the Speaker wants the bill on the floor, then chances are they want it to be passed. 

It’s common knowledge on Beacon Hill that the best way to advance your career as a Democrat is to follow the leader. This not only feeds into the lack of transparency, but it also promotes a toxic work environment for those in the State House. 

In December 2018, Rep. Cory Atkins gave a farewell address to the House.After enumerating the many honorable statesmen and politicians who had worked in the House chamber since 1638, she contrasted the honorable history of the chamber by pointing out that now most people simply check the big boards on the wall to see how the Speaker of the House is voting and change their votes to match then-Speaker DeLeo’s. 

During the 2019 Rules debate in the House, there was a prime example of this phenomenon in action. While voting on amendment #10 on H.2021, DeLeo’s light initially showed a “No” vote, and most democrats began voting against the measure.

What happened next is mind-blowing:

“As is often the case, many Democrats quickly took their cue from DeLeo and Petrolati and voted "no" as well. This is not an uncommon occurrence in the House. In this case it was at least 63 Democrats who played "follow the leader" and voted "no."

As the board began to fill up with "no" votes, Petrolati apparently took notice and talked into a microphone he didn't know was on. "It's a yes?" "Switch 'em. Yes, yes, yes, yes yes, Mikey," shouted Petrolati to Division Leader Mike Moran. Suddenly, DeLeo and Petrolati's votes switched to "yes." And then all 63 Democrat who had initially voted "no" suddenly switched his or her vote to "yes."”

When asked for comment later by Bob Katzen of the Beacon Hill Roll Call, Rep. Russell Holmes had a damning answer for what had just transpired: "Welcome to the House of Representatives. This is exactly how the House runs itself and the members should be ashamed. The speaker is like a shepherd leading a flock of sheep."

10. One person has all the power

The Speaker of the House and Senate President have near-unilateral power and control over their respective chambers due to a series of rewards and punishments they use to keep the rank-and-file in line. The Speaker and Senate President  appoint and can fire committee chairs at will, and therefore control the flow of legislation.

Every two years, at the beginning of the legislative session, members of each chamber elect their leader by a majority vote. In theory, this means there can be a change in power with each legislative session, after each election. But in practice, we rarely see change at the very top, unless a leader retires or is carried out in handcuffs (yes, the latter is more common than you think). 

Before holding a public vote on the floor, Democrats meet in a private caucus to select one Democrat to support. This protects this party from splitting their votes and potentially giving the position to a Republican.They then return to the floor to make a rare public vote, putting every rank-and-file legislator on the spot to choose the party’s pick or face retribution. 

Given the ways in which the Speaker and Senate President can enforce discipline, taking a stand in caucus is just as bad as personally attacking them.

The protocol for electing a Speaker is not the only way the Democrats can be kept in line in the State House. There are also rewards and punishments that keep representatives under control. 

Different positions that are given out by the Speaker of the House can also influence the decisions of representatives. 

Positions such as committee chair or vice-chairs come with a pay raise for representatives that can dictate whether or not wages are liveable. These stipends range from a $5,000 increase to a $73,000 increase from the rank-and-file representative starting salary. If a representative is given a position that affords them a salary increase, they can be incentivized to act in the manner that the person who gave them their position wants them to – said person being the Speaker of the House. 

Until these rules and the general culture of secrecy in the State House are changed, we won't see important bills passed.

Are you mad about this state of affairs? Then join us and get involved advocating for transparency and accountability at the State House