Spill of the Hill: Mass. Democratic leaders, progressive reformers far apart on transparency

Why it matters: Massachusetts has long been seen as one of the least transparent states in the country by national observers.

• Voters started to push back on lawmakers' secretive ways last year by approving a ballot measure to audit some of the General Court's affairs.
• The leaders of the House and Senate say they, too, want a more open legislative process, but the reforms they're offering have more to do with the speed of the sausage-making than how much the public gets to see.

At the top of her reform agenda, Senate President Karen Spilka wants to prevent the biennial Beacon Hill logjam by moving up the date committees have to report for or against bills from 13 months into the two-year session to within the first year.

• She's also committed to posting more bill summaries for the work of the crucial budget committee.

House Speaker Ron Mariano has signaled a willingness to join the Senate in speeding up the House's calendar.

• In his speech to open this year's session, Mariano said: "Doing good work isn't enough if our constituents don't feel as though they can easily follow the process."

Yes, but: A few members of Spilka's Democratic Senate caucus have much more ambitious reforms in mind.

• "We have had significantly fewer roll calls, routinely missed deadlines, failed to adopt joint rules, waived rules, passed bills beyond the end of formal sessions ... and have often been at odds with our partners in the House," Quincy Democrat Sen. John Keenan wrote on X after his protest vote of "present" instead of endorsing Spilka as Senate President for the term.
• Sens. Jamie Eldridge and Becca Rausch, both progressive members of Spilka's caucus, have offered bills more in line with what reformers are asking for.

Friction point: Changes that transparency activists actually want — like making all committee votes public and applying the state public records law to the executive and legislative branches — are backed by a few members but died in committee or were killed outright last year.

What's next: There's already an active challenge to leaders' newfound commitment to transparency.

• The law opening the General Court's books to an audit is in effect, but unless resistant legislative leaders come to a compromise with Auditor Diana DiZoglio, it'll get messy, and the constitutionality of the measure will have to be sorted out by the courts.
• As for reformers' top goals like squeezing public records and committee votes out of the secretive Legislature, there's little action seen on the horizon this session.