Advocating for transparency alone isn’t the endgame, it’s the start of accountability. Whether it’s a candidate obscuring their views or Beacon Hill’s leaders, when critical information is obscured from the public, we all lose.

Earlier this week, I discussed the launch of the Beacon Hill Compliance Tracker, which tracks bills and committees in the Massachusetts state legislature and grades them based on adherence to transparency rules. Though I hope it makes well-intentioned waves in the push for transparency, it’s only a stepping stone on the path to fully honest procedures and public accountability.

Progress isn’t perfect

Over the past few years, grassroots organizations, political movements, and activists have united in pushing for rules on Beacon Hill that put tangible and meaningful requirements on the chambers of the legislature to foster transparency. For example, the aforementioned tracker keeps tabs on House Rule 27, the requirement to report a bill out or refer it to study within 60 days of a hearing, with a possible 90 day extension:

The House chair of each joint standing committee shall make final report on all matters referred to and heard by their committee prior to the third Wednesday of December of the first annual session of the General Court by not later than 60 calendar days after the matter is heard; provided, however, that an additional 30 calendar days may be granted on a matter by the House chair who shall notify the Clerk of said extension.

The purpose of this rule is to prevent bills from being buried in silence:

  1. Committees cannot sit on bills indefinitely; they have to make a decision.
  2. It sets deadlines for progress, improving predictability.
  3. Time-budgeting becomes a necessity, not an afterthought.
  4. Extensions grant predictable leeway within reason for special cases.
  5. Automatic reporting can trigger when deadlines expire.

In essence, it’s an anti-bottleneck rule designed to keep the legislative pipeline clear and predictable, while still affording some flexibility. However, it’s not a perfect solution. According to the tracker, among the 7,383 bills analyzed, 1,453—nearly 20%—failed to meet this deadline. And until now, that number was unknown.

Visible but unreadable

A legislature can post every report online and still leave its constituency in the dark if the information is scattered and doesn’t connect to outcomes. Although the rules require that information be posted, Beacon Hill can check the “transparency” boxes by publishing summaries and votes that most citizens will never be able to reliably find. For example, one committee posts PDFs on its “Hearings” page, another Word files, another hides them in page tabs for the bills themselves—a maze of formats that technically checks the transparency box while frustrating anyone who actually wants to follow a bill.

And so on. It quickly becomes apparent that, while the information may technically be posted, it creates an illusion of openness when the reality is that most citizens will never be able to reliably track the information they seek down unless they know where to look.

Function over philosophy

False transparency looks like:

  • Scattered or unsearchable information
  • Obscuring information via PDFs, DOCX documents, HTML, and JavaScript
  • “Study phases”, where bills are essentially sent to an unofficial graveyard

True transparency, therefore, happens when information is centralized, searchable, plaintext, plain-language, and trackable. If I could recommend the next biggest leap in legislative transparency, it would require that committees align on how they post information, or, short of that, document how and where they post it.

Turning visibility into accountability

Transparency rules without follow-through are just attractive window-dressing. To hold our representatives accountable, I encourage readers to:

  • Educate others about the opacity of our legislature
  • Use the tool to put a number to the problem
  • Lead journalists, researchers, and watchdogs to the tool

Ultimately, this is a systemic, non-partisan issue that everyone in Massachusetts has a vested interest in solving. When our nation is facing such unprecedented and tumultuous times, keeping our own house accountable is more important than ever.