BOSTON — Senators will add their own proposed framework for public access to legislative records to the mix next week, one that follows similar contours of what the House supported last month but without any of the language representatives passed to narrow the scope of the voter-approved legislative audit.
The Senate Ways and Means Committee released its redraft (S 3200) of that House bill (H 5469) Thursday morning and President Karen Spilka said the plan is for senators to pass the bill on Thursday, July 30. As long as it’s moved into conference by July 31, the issue — including the House’s audit-limiting language — can remain in play for formal sessions later this year as voters also decide the fate of a related public records access ballot question on Nov. 3.
The bill’s passage through the Senate appears inevitable; it cleared Ways and Means with 15 members, all Democrats, voting in favor, no votes against and three Republicans opting against voting yes or no.
Spilka’s office said the proposal is modeled on Pennsylvania’s “Right-to-Know Law” and outlines the process for members of the public to request legislative records, including a judicial appeals process for denied requests. It includes 19 categories of documents that would be considered “legislative records,” including legislation, resolutions, summaries, fiscal notes, amendments, notices of committee hearings, records of hearing attendance, hearing transcripts and recordings, written testimony solicited and received by a committee, legislative journals, recorded votes, and ethics disclosures.
Much of that information is already informally considered to be public records and is made publicly available on the Legislature’s website in real time, but under the bill advancing in the Senate legislative offices would have up to 10 business days to provide it to a requestor.
The Senate Ways and Means Committee’s proposal includes two categories of legislative records that the House did not: a list of the names, public office addresses, job titles and salaries as maintained by human resources, and procurement and contracts for goods and services unless they are otherwise exempt. The House definition included “legislative caucuses and their members,” but the Senate proposal does not.
The Senate Ways and Means proposal also appears to have a more broad definition of legislative record. It would include records “made, received, maintained or kept” by the Legislature while the House version only spoke to documents “made or received” by the House or Senate.
Like the House bill, the Senate Ways and Means Committee proposal treats the governor’s office one way and the Legislature another. But unlike the House version, the bill the Senate will vote on would not simply apply the existing public records law to the governor’s office.
Instead, it would create two new parts of the public records law (new subsections specific to the governor’s office, and an entire section for the Legislature) with specific exemptions and carveouts for each. For the governor’s office, the Senate Ways and Means bill would require the designation of a records access officer and compliance with the public records chapter. But it also grants an added ability for the executive to withhold “communications, memoranda, drafts or other documents relating to developing policy positions.”
“By writing the Legislature and the Governor into the public records law, we are affirming that the people of Massachusetts have a right to clearly see our work and how their tax dollars are spent. This builds on the success of this session’s rules reforms, which were important steps in opening up our work to public view while inviting more voices into the process,” Spilka said in a statement Thursday.
The branches also take different approaches to appeals in cases when someone is unhappy with the response to their records request.
Under the bill advancing in the Senate, an aggrieved requestor could appeal the decision of the House or Senate records access officer. First, the requestor could ask for a reconsideration, which would require a written statement of the reasons for the denial be shared also with the branch’s Rules Committee. The Rules Committee could reverse or modify the records access officer’s decision. After that, a denied requestor could appeal to the Superior Court.
The House version would direct appeals to the Supreme Judicial Court.
The bill expected to pass the Senate earned plaudits from the same advocates who praised the House version: Common Cause Massachusetts Executive Director Geoff Foster, Massachusetts Newspaper Publishers Association Executive Director Robert Ambrogi and ACLU of Massachusetts Executive Director Carol Rose.
“We strongly support the Senate’s thoughtful bill and appreciate the Legislature taking necessary steps to improve transparency within a framework that is legally defensible. This historic expansion of our public records law builds on proposals that we and fellow advocates have long promoted, and we look forward to seeing it enacted into law,” Rose said.
When the House passed its public records bill, the backers of Question 1 on this fall’s ballot said they had serious concerns about both its substance and the process by which it came before lawmakers. Danielle Allen, the 2022 gubernatorial candidate who is founder and convening chair of the Coalition for Healthy Democracy, said the group “remain[s] committed to supporting the ballot initiative for public records reform, which would apply the public records law to both the Governor’s Office and the Legislature, just as it applies to other public bodies across Massachusetts.”
“The people of Massachusetts should not have to rely on politicians to decide what records they are allowed to see. The ballot initiative establishes a simple principle: government records should be public unless a specific exemption applies,” Allen said. “That is the transparency and accountability Massachusetts voters deserve from their elected leaders.”
The records reform bills on the move in the Legislature affirm that lawmakers have a much different view of reform than the initiative petition supporters and the potential for competing and conflicting laws appears to be growing.
The Senate Ways and Means Committee bill eyes an effective date of Jan. 1, 2027 — the same as the ballot question — but it would only apply to records made or received on or after Jan. 6, 2027, the start of the next legislative term. It declares that records made or received before then “shall not be considered a legislative record.”
Mirroring the House bill, the bill the Senate will vote on next week would also appropriate $1 million for costs associated with maintaining records and responding to requests — $250,000 to each chamber, to the governor’s office, and to joint legislative operations.
Even if it is not added to the Senate bill, eventual negotiations on the records reform bill will also involve a House-approved measure that narrows the scope of a voter-approved legislative audit, limiting the auditor’s power to investigate the branch to four categories of administrative functions, rather than the more expansive language outlined in the 2024 ballot law.
Colin Young is the deputy editor for State House News Service and State Affairs Pro Massachusetts. Reach him at [email protected].
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