Date: 8/23/2018
On Aug. 17, I read a story in our local paper about our state’s Attorney General offering open meeting law training in an effort to “better educate elected officials and the public on the requirement of the state’s open meeting law.” In the release it says that “state, local, regional and county public bodies are required to adhere to the open meeting law,” which mandates that meetings and dealings be open to the public. What this release left out is that one of our largest and most visible state elected bodies – our State Legislature – has voted themselves above open meeting laws that apply to others.
Our Legislature’s ongoing exemption from the open meeting laws that apply to other elected bodies across the Commonwealth is a prime example of “do as we say and not as we do” political mentality that rightfully frustrates and disenfranchises the rest of us. In 2016 when they were reforming the laws, instead of ending the exemption they created a “Special Legislative Commission” to study the issue. The report was due at the end of 2017 and to no surprise to anyone they extended their own deadline to December of this year.
In April of this year, the Pioneer Institute, which is an independent, non-partisan research organization, sent a 10-page open letter to the Chairs of the Legislative Commission to outline precisely why they believe these Legislative exceptions are unconstitutional. As noted in their release, “we reviewed the state’s constitution and existing statutes and concluded that the legislative exemptions from public records law and open meeting laws are unconstitutional”. Upon analysis, they concluded that the current lack of transparency violates the constitutional principle that the Legislature should be accountable to citizens “at all times.” Exemptions like this chip away at the public trust of our elected officials and serve as real evidence that elected officials say certain things during campaign season – buzzwords like “transparency” and “accountability” – and turn a blind eye once elected.
We deserve better from our elected officials. People should be able to rely upon the people we elect to the Statehouse to represent us and to keep the promises they make to us during election season. We deserve representatives who work as hard as we do, who are accountable to us and do not delay efforts or find ways to hide their performance or shirk accountability.
Hopefully by the end of this year the Commission will do the right thing and recommend that this preferential Legislative treatment comes to an end. I would like nothing more than to have my first vote as a new. Representative in 2019 be to require transparency in our Legislature and join the rest of our State’s elected officials in open meeting law training – as it should be.
Allison Werder Longmeadow
