AmberPaw has a post at Blue Mass Group about eight courageous state representatives who are asking for increased democracy in our legislature. I call them courageous because it is very risky politically to go against the power structure. From an op-ed letter in Cape Cod Today, the lawmakers note,
"We clearly see that consolidation of power in the Speaker has given the Massachusetts House a less than democratic form of governance and we believe that the most important thing we can do as members is point out what is so obvious that it has been taken for granted."
In order to correct that situation, Representatives Matthew C. Patrick, Thomas M. Stanley, Lida E. Harkins, William G. Greene, Jr., Will N. Brownsberger, Steven J. D'Amico, Joseph R. Driscoll and John F. Quinn sent a letter to their colleagues asking them to support five initiatives.
To begin this process, we are focusing on five areas that we believe will begin to restore the balance of power in the membership and insure that issues will receive both proper consideration and debate. We have developed specific proposals to:
1. Ensure that Home Rule Petitions can be discharged from the Rules Committee in a timely fashion;
2. Make the state budget process in the House more transparent, and make the House operating budget specifics accessible to all members;
3. Provide a leadership election and committee appointment process that distributes more power to the members and less power to the Speaker;
4. Provide legislators with greater control of the operating budgets for their offices; and
5. Eliminate or narrow legislative exemptions to the open meeting law, public records law, and purchasing standards.
A group, Fix Beacon Hill, was trying to get signatures for a ballot initiative ...
... to change the state constitution and implement some of the changes that the reps are seeking in this case. I posted about the effort here. I think that the effort is now defunct as they were not able to get the requisite number of signatures.
Still the goal of reform in our legislature is a worthy one and I hope that the efforts of the representatives here will receive some publicity and generate interest in change.
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1 comment:
There are only two ways this would ever, ever happen. First, a sincere and honest person could be elected House Speaker and could simply vagree to these ideas (Not likely). Second, the changes could be forced upon the House by the electorate via a balot initiative (More likely, but open to legal challenge).
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