STATEMENT OF PURPOSE
Three recent explorations of the culture and infrastructure of the Massachusetts State House (MassForward – Advancing Democratic Innovation and Electoral Reform in Massachusetts, The Massachusetts Legislature: Democracy in Decline, and Massachusetts Senate: Review of Staff Classification and Compensation) point to interrelated challenges that account for many deficiencies in the way the legislature functions: professional capacity, transparency, diversity, and the concentration of power and attendant disempowerment of members.
We are committed to pursuing reforms that can improve the legislature’s effectiveness and can enhance its responsiveness to the voices of its elected members and, thereby, its responsiveness to the voices of their constituents.
We call for the establishment of a non-partisan legislative services bureau to research and draft legislation, prepare fiscal notes and analyses, track legislation, report on committee proceedings, and conduct periodic sunset reviews of all laws.
We call for enhancing the capacity and diversity of legislative staff. We seek to address
inadequate pay, high turnover, the lack of training and professional development opportunities, and inadequate and inconsistent legislator-to-staff ratios. We call for more professional oversight of appointments, training, and advancement.
We ask all House and Senate members and candidates for legislative seats to commit to supporting rules that call for full transparency at all stages of the legislative process and, in particular, an accounting of members’ votes on all matters before the committees on which they serve.
We ask House and Senate members and candidates for legislative seats to support rules and procedural changes that would put an end to the backroom negotiations and bundling of amendments that have rendered the budget process and law-making opaque and undemocratic.
We call for changes in rules and practices in order to reverse the concentration of information and power experienced in Massachusetts over the past two decades.
COALITION STEERING COMMITTEE
Jordan Berg Powers, Worcester
Peter Enrich, Chilmark
(Prof. Emeritus, Northeastern U. School of Law; chair, Progressive Dems. of MA)
Jonathan Hecht, Watertown
(former MA State Rep.)
Jay Kaufman, Lexington
(Former MA State Rep.; founding Pres., Beacon Leadership Collaborative).
Jeanne Kempthorne, Pittsfield
(former member, State Ethics Comm’n, and former board member, Common Cause MA)
Erin Leahy, Somerville
(Exec. Dir., Act On Mass)
Linda Matys O’Connell, Springfield
(Social and political activist, former co-president League of Women Voters of Massachusetts)
Dan Winslow, Truro
(Former Chief Legal Counsel to Gov.Romney, Trial Court judge, and legislator)
To reach out to the Coalition to Reform our Legislature’s Steering Committee, please email info.malegreform@gmail.com.