68: House rules
'Don’t confuse what goes on in this building with democracy.'
So much happening in national climate news my goodness but today I’m actually going to talk about something happening here in Massachusetts—an effort to fix the lack of transparency in the State House. In part because it is a thing that occupied a good chunk of my week, but also because I think there are a lot of important analogs to stuff happening nationally in climate change and other areas. Namely, special interests and a more conservative minority blocking popular policy, thanks in part to anti-democratic rules.
The Massachusetts 2020 legislative session only recently ended, so there has been a lot of state-level news, including a major climate change bill that was able to clear both the House and Senate at the last minute, only to meet a shocking veto from our Republican Gov. Charlie Baker. Everyone was livid, so the House and Senate passed it a second time just yesterday, sending it back to Baker for what the political press likes to call “a showdown.”
The bill will likely become law and it is actually a good step, putting the state on a path to net zero by 2050 and notably requiring new limits on emissions every five years. Past policy on state reductions had 10 year milestones which is pretty ridiculous considering the strides that must be made by 2030 alone. And the veto seemed to come out of nowhere, as the bill mostly aligns with Baker’s own stated climate goals. So you might expect everyone to be cheering on the legislature and grabbing the pitchforks for Baker, and I guess they kind of are, but one of the big priorities right now for Sunrise Boston, Act on Mass, and a coalition of many other progressive groups and also me is actually trying to reform the way the State House works.
The reason is that the very special interests that twisted Baker’s arm to veto the bill are representative of the same forces that have been scuttling popular, progressive legislation for many years, taking advantage of the state’s arcane rules that allow pretty much everything to happen behind closed doors and with little accountability. Sometimes those special interests, in this case the real estate lobby, will water down legislation out of public view while it is in committee, and sometimes they will successfully convince lawmakers also out of public view to just go ahead and kill it. In this case, they had to make an end run at Baker, but it happens often in the legislature.
In the case of climate change, that has translated to 13 years going by without new major legislation, in a state that fancies itself a national leader on the issue. Out of 245 climate change-related bills introduced in the House from 2013 to 2018, 202 were quietly killed in committee. Only nine were ever voted on by the entire House, and almost every decision on every one of those bills happened in a secret vote, with no public tally recorded. That’s according to a recent, damning report from Brown University and the Climate Social Science Network, which also found that clean energy advocates were outspent by industry opposition (utilities, real estate, fossil fuel and chemical industries) 3.5 to one, and that the House Speaker wields tremendous control over what bills clear the House. For over a decade, that speaker was notorious conservative Democrat Bob DeLeo, who recently stepped down, and now it’s Ronald Mariano, who is not off to a great start!
The specific problems, or at least a few of them, are that in the Massachusetts House, committee votes are not publicly recorded. Neither is testimony in most cases. Not only that, even full House floor votes are also rarely recorded, due to some dungeons and dragons-like procedures that usually mean the Speaker just eyeballs the vote and calls it. In the rare case that a bill does get a vote, it happens just 24 hours after the committee releases it, which is infuriating to many lawmakers themselves. However, the vast majority of bills are merely “sent to study,” a quaint sounding way to kill a bill in which imaginary scholars will studiously sit down with their imaginary magnifying glasses and fountain pens and study the bill so hard for the rest of eternity and it is never heard from again RIP death by too much studying so tragic.
No public vote, no published testimony. When a bill is sent to study, the average constituent has no way to know how or why or whether their own elected official voted in favor or against. And if you’re wondering, Massachusetts is particularly dysfunctional in this respect. As an advocate once told a reporter at the end of a frustrating day, “Let me be clear. Don’t confuse what goes on in this building with democracy.”
All of this adds up to a nominally progressive state like Massachusetts regularly failing to pass legislation that has majority support. Two specific examples that got me interested in this campaign:
• In 2017 and 2018, I, along with many others, was a big supporter of a bill that would increase state level protections for immigrants called the Safe Communities Act. I attended two lobby days, met with my rep, etc., and it was a hugely popular bill. Record number of co-sponsors, endorsing organizations, great press. What happened to it? Sent to study! Why? Who knows! The bill has been stuck in the House for eight years. So much studying the poor thing.
• In 2018, a coalition of housing advocates worked tirelessly to pass the Jim Brooks Act, which would offer extremely modest protections to renters facing eviction (there is an eviction crisis in Massachusetts). The law was, again, hugely popular, and actually a City Council decision, but it needed to get signoff from the House, again, for arcane reasons. After packed public hearings in City Hall it passed the council 10-3. Then it went to the House and guess what happened? Sent to study! Who sent it there? Fuck if I know! But I do know the real estate lobby mounted a huge campaign to scuttle it, and apparently succeeded.
Both cases were devastating to the advocates who worked on the bills and the people who would have been protected by them. It actually fucking sucked.
So this morning, I went to a meeting with my state Rep. Liz Malia, who has been a great ally on many issues, but opposes the three House rules changes being proposed by the transparency campaign. We had a great turnout at the meeting and we got our message across, but honestly it was pretty frustrating for a set of reasons.
One thing that’s come up from a number of lawmakers, as the campaign has been quite successful at rallying people in its favor, is an implication that all these people must not be real constituents. Rep. Malia was not quite so dismissive, but I got a distinct sense that, perhaps because Sunrise was involved, she thought we were newcomers or outsiders, even though many of us in the meeting had been involved in any number of other community campaigns and groups, or moreover, were just concerned human beings living in her district. Others lawmakers have questioned the campaign’s legitimacy more explicitly and there’s even an apparent effort by the Speaker to restrict the activities of advocates in response.
You get the feeling that when democracy at the participatory level starts happening at a larger scale than is common, some elected officials get an uneasy feeling that something is actually going wrong. There’s a similar sentiment that comes through among those who are opposing the transparency amendments—that’s just not really how this whole thing works.
Which I guess says a lot about the work that needs to be done to create more meaningful kinds of democracy. It also says a lot about why, even in a place like Massachusetts, progress is so often blocked. For all the talk about tribalism and partisanship in this country, a state with an enormous Democratic majority—79% of both chambers are Dems—often can’t pass popular policy.
Yes, that’s often because of true ideological disagreements that must be worked out within the legislative body. But it’s also a result of serious power imbalances. That includes well-heeled special interest lobbying, but also anti-democratic features built into our political structures. Until those structures are made truly democratic—whether that’s knowing how your state Rep votes, or having proportionately representative federal decision-making bodies—we’ll face limits on accomplishing necessary action on climate change or any number of other issues.
Listening
I’ve been listening to a lot of Kate Bush around the house lately to the point that Jamie had to ask if I’m okay. The answer is no, I am not okay, but I also just love Kate Bush. Here’s a seasonally appropriate song. On this record there’s another song about doing it with a snowman. 😉
And now I want to say a few things about GameStop. Lol just kidding I have literally nothing to say about GameStop. You got that vaccine? Nah me neither. When I think about the vaccine, sometimes I think of that En Vogue song that’s like “no you’re never gonna get it never ever gonna get it.” More people I know seem to be getting it though, so that’s a very good thing, and my parents have appointments set up in February. I can’t wait to feel the power coursing through my veins. For now I will settle for whiskey coursing through my veins.
The only other news here is that I resumed pickling, which longtime readers will remember was a fleeting hobby. I just made some cauliflower and peppers I’ll tell you how they turn out. No links this week I’m out.
Tate