Transparency

Now I’m old enough to remember open, around the clock conference committees, and frankly am rather relieved that I do not carry on my back the job of listening to the public debate in the conference committee, listening to the private speculations of conference committee members who might be supporting my clients priorities in executive session, and then trying to weigh the relative importance of those public and private remarks so I could translate it all to my clients and give them an honest guess at what might emerge. Sometimes I guessed right and was a brilliant analyst and sometimes I guessed wrong and was clearly not “in the loop” .

Nobody’s in the Bunker on this Bunker Hill Day -- all the key players in the loop are in the State House trying to pick up a scrap of information from anybody who might know anything about any of the remaining “Big 3” conference committees (Ethics, Transportation and Budget).

Public officials are more likely to make decisions in the best interests of their constituents when they know they’re being watched.

The indictment of former House Speaker Sal DiMasi on federal corruption charges left many in Massachusetts wondering how this could have been prevented.

We at ONE Massachusetts have learned that people in our state will support government when they know that taxes and other revenues are raised in a manner that’s fair and spent in a manner that’s wise.

The Budget Conference Committee members are currently considering Senate outside section 7A – the State Budget Transparency web portal. This measure would require the state to create and maintain a searchable website open to the public detailing costs, recipients and purposes for all appropriations, including contracts, grants, subcontracts, tax expenditures and other subsidies funded by the state government. [Amendment sponsored by Senator Cynthia Stone Creem]

Making the state’s budget information more easily accessible would encourage private citizens, journalists and watchdog groups to assumer greater stewardship of our state government.

Yesterday, MASSPIRG sent a letter to the Budget Conference Committee members currently considering this measure: Senators Steven Panagiotakos, Stephen Brewer, Michael Knapik and Representatives Charles Murphy, Barbara L'Italien and Vinny deMacedo.

Now is a good time for you to weigh in.

In preparation to call my legislators for this week's Virtual Rally, I've decided to check out which of the amendments proposed after the release of the House's Ways and Means budget called for increased revenue.

I'm scanning down the list of the 978 proposed amendments, looking for words like tax and fee.

Aha!

This sounds promising:
Amendment #131    Clark, Katherine    Alcohol Tax Exemption

Let's read the text: 

Ms. Clark of Melrose moves to amend the bill by adding at the end thereof the following section:-

“SECTION X. Subsection (g) of Section 6 of chapter 64H of the General Laws, as appearing in the 2006 Official Edition, is hereby amended by striking out, in line 72, the following words:- “and one hundred and thirty-eight”.”

Umm... So what does that mean??

We know that policymakers make different decisions when they are watched by their constituents. In order to make that policy-making process more transparent, Governor Deval Patrick has filed "An Act Improving the Laws Relating to Ethics and Lobbying."

But what would this pending ethics bill mean for all of the Massachusetts nonprofits that want to voice their opinion on public policy? Will it restrict their ability to advocate for their causes? Will registering lobbyists be prohibitively expensive for small nonprofits?

It sounds like this bill is going to go quickly through the legislature, so now is the time to answer all of these questions! Pam Wilmot, Executive Director of Common Cause Massachusetts, and a member of the Governor's Task Force on Public Integrity, will walk us through this important piece of legislation, and answer your questions!

Join us Wednesday, March 25th at 5:00pm in the 9th floor conference room at 30 Winter
Street. To make our Insider Budget Briefings more accessible, we are reducing tuition to only $10, including a light supper and take-home materials. Tuition may be waived for those who need assistance.

Event Info:
Wednesday, March 25th, 5:00-7:00pm
30 Winter Street, 9th Floor [Map]
Boston, Massachusetts 02108
RSVP by March 23rd to carmen@realclout.org

What do you think about lobbying the Legislature to change the Joint Rules to say that in each Chamber the the Budget ought to be debated in order, line item by line item videoed live and stored for later viewing. Anyway, that's the way we used to do in the good old days before "rules reform". The galleries were packed with the press and other observers, paid and volunteer who often stuck with the whole process and attended the open conference committees as well. 

I tried the idea out at the League of Women Voters lobby day today and got some positive feedback from the audience and some mixed reviews from a very short list of legislators and staff so I though I would try and get some feedback here.

In the SHNS yesterday, DeLeo repeated his insistence that the state needs to reform its ethics and pension rules to win back the trust of a public turned sour on Beacon Hill integrity, after a string of scandals and DiMasi’s departure amid ethics questions. “The level of confidence, shall I say to be nice, of our constituency is at a low point,” the speaker said. DeLeo said the only way to reverse that is to “show that we’re serious about ethics reform and pension reform, in particular.” He said he planned to “roll out a package” within the next month or so to address those issues.

Pay attention to the state policy process kids. Federal $$$ are coming to town in about 17 different buckets, and who decides where it goes?

I recommend a very straight and sharp analysis of the current situation from Massachusetts Liberal Blog that problably mirrors what is going on in all the other 49 states.

My advice to worried advocates for the poor the elderly and the disabled and anybody else who is hoping the federal stimulus dollars will help restore programs that have been slashed by 9C cuts and the Governor's FY 10 budget proposal, was to quote César Chávez's advice to his workers during the grape boycott; "Keep your eye on the grape". He was warning his organizers not to get distracted by the glamour of boycott and keep their focus on organizing the workers picking the grapes.

Translated to advocacyspeak it means get yourself on record with our Congressional delegation during the debate, but keep talking about the impact of the 9C and the potential FY 10 budget cuts to the elected and appointed Massachusetts officials in the Administration and in the Legislature who will be deciding where the federal stimulus dollars go. 

All we need is transparency and accessability to the decision makers. Updates below the fold.

Thank you Secretary Kirwan!

You might already know that ONE Massachusetts has a commitment to work for a more transparent, accessible and accountable state and local policy-making process. Toward that end, Yawu Miller on behalf of ONE Mass has submitted testimony to the Governor’s Public Integrity Task Force and Boston City Council on the importance of  transparency in the policy making process.  

It has become clear to us that public support for government increases when people know that their taxes are assessed in a way that’s fair and that the revenues our government collects are being spent wisely.

Whether you’re talking about the municipal level or the state level, information on budgets is often not easy to find.

Well, we opened Governor Patrick’s House 1 today to find on the front page the following:

The Governor's award-winning budget document comprises hundreds of pages of background and supporting materials, including:

• A description of the overall budget, the challenges faced in developing the budget and the solutions employed to meet them
• In-depth policy documents describing the proposals embedded in the budget
• Detailed historical information on budget levels and spending by department and spending account
  

The Budget Navigation Guide is designed to help users navigate the state budget and find the information most important to them. The Guide contains a brief explanation of the budget's contents, describing what information can be found in each area. 

And the information is easier to find.

Lost in today’s news is an important hearing. 1:00.....A Temporary House Committee on Ethics holds a public hearing on Gov. Deval Patrick’s ethics and lobbying reform bill......Room A-1

One of our jobs at ONE Massachusetts is to provide our network members with the information they need to “pay attention” to how our government works and how we pay for it. It’s called informed civic engagement. Yawu Miller will will be testifying today for ONE Mass in support of increased transparency in the budget making process and increased transparency in the registration and reporting requirements for lobbyists.

Why? Because paying attention is a two way street and transparency is the stop light.

Andrea Estes and Matt Viser’s story in today’s Globe speculates that DiMasi’s “relationships contributed to his undoing”.  And they are correct.

There is no excusing the Speaker from not paying attention when his long time friends and supporters offered to pick up some of his personal expenses or offered him gifts, even if it was “perfectly legal”.  He just didn’t think how it would look on the front page of the paper, and how even these perfectly legal activities would further erode the public’s confidence in government.

There is no excusing his long time personal friends for exploiting their friendship with him for their own personal gain as ‘strategists” advising special interests trying to influence public policy.  I doubt they thought for a second how they were betraying the trust of their long time, now very powerful friend.

In the wake of a narrowly-defeated Proposition 2 ½ override campaign, Ashland town officials are now convening a General Government/School Financial Operations Ad Hoc Committee, charged with evaluating the current fiscal operations of the town government’s finance department and the school department’s business office, according to the Boston Globe.