CAMBRIDGE, MA — Cambridge residents received a political mailer this week from Representative Marjorie Decker that included disinformation and misleading statements about the politician’s record on supporting transparency measures in the House. 

 

“Representative Decker falsely claims that committee votes are publicly available in the House and that she voted to make that change. In fact, the House has prevented the full votes of committee members from being publicly available for several sessions, and Representative Decker has repeatedly spoken and voted against measures to make committee votes public, despite 94% of voters in her district instructing her to vote in favor of such reforms,” said Brenna Ransden, acting executive director of Act on Mass, a good governance and transparency non-profit that monitors the state legislature. “This campaign literature contains calculated disinformation meant to obscure her antagonistic history of preventing good governance and transparency reforms from passing.”

 

The representative seemingly is referring to rule 17B in the Massachusetts House rules, which states that any member of a committee may request votes be made public. However, that rule includes a gaping loophole where that request only applies to votes made in person. 

 

“Anyone who interacts with the State House knows that these votes don’t occur in person: they occur in electronic polls emailed to members of the committee. So that’s a gaping loophole,” said Jonathan Cohn, policy director of Progressive Mass. 

 

"It is disappointing that Rep. Decker is misrepresenting the state of open government in Massachusetts. Much of the Massachusetts Legislature's website remains inaccessible for everyday voters, and some of the information that she says is available to the public is simply not--and she has voted repeatedly to keep it that way," explained Cohn.

 

Amidst the least productive session in recent history, and with the reigning title of the least effective state legislature in the country, the issue of public committee votes is particularly important to voters in the contentious state rep race. According to a 2021 study by Brown University, the lack of transparency in the committee process is one of the main reasons why the state has failed for over a decade to pass meaningful climate and environmental legislation. Their number one recommendation for better legislative efficiency was that “committee votes should be transparent and public.”

 

“Our legislature has proven itself dysfunctional and unaccountable. We in the climate justice movement were outraged that our elected officials procrastinated on climate legislation until the very end of the session only for it to fall apart in a back room fiasco. When we urged House leadership to stand up against fossil fuels, they failed to do so. 350 Mass Action is proud to endorse Evan MacKay to be a champion on climate and transparency.  Rep. Decker has repeatedly voted against transparency and good government despite the pleas of the climate movement for urgent action,” said Dan Zackin, 350 Mass Action Political Coordinator. 

 

“It is difficult to follow our state legislature. Massachusetts is the only state where the governor, legislature, and courts have all exempted themselves from public records laws. It is disappointing that my opponent would choose to continually mislead our community. Instead of misrepresenting her record, she simply should have voted the correct way and listened to our community,” stated Evan MacKay, who is challenging Decker for the 25th Middlesex seat and has earned the endorsement of Act on Mass, Progressive Mass, 350 Mass Action, and Mass Alliance, among others. 

 

“Voters are frustrated by a dysfunctional legislature that fails to deliver for our communities while blocking accountability,” explained MacKay. “After more than a decade of voting the wrong way, Rep. Decker is now trying to muddy the waters as she seeks re-election with voting finishing in two weeks. Voters of the 25th Middlesex District will not be tricked by expensive mailers.”

 

“Advocates are frustrated by the state legislature’s lack of movement on important pieces of legislation, and we believe Evan is the candidate that understands the structural problems in the state legislature, and will be a champion for reforms that make our state government more accountable to residents of the commonwealth,” concluded Vanessa Snow, executive director for Mass Alliance. 

 

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Correcting the record: Representative Decker’s History on Public Committee Votes

In 2019, former Rep. Jon Hecht (D-Watertown) filed an amendment to change that by clarifying that it should also apply to electronic polls. Rep. Decker voted NO: the amendment failed 49 to 109 (See RC#4). 

 

In 2021, in response to strong public pressure on transparency, the House delayed the vote on its own rules until July. 

 

The language in H.3932 (the House’s new rules for 2021-2022) did make a change to rule 17B. But it did not, contrary to what many representatives said, make it better. Indeed, it only added that the record “shall include the aggregate tally of members voting in the affirmative, members not voting or members reserving their rights, and the names of members voting in the negative on an individual bill.” By hiding the names of those voting yes, not voting, or reserving their rights), one could argue that these rules were a step back in transparency. 

 

Rep. Erika Uyterhoeven (D-Somerville) filed an amendment to change that language to specify that a roll call means that names of all legislators are listed but, more importantly, that the language applies to the electronic polls that are the vehicle for most votes. It failed 41 to 117. Rep. Decker again voted NO. 

 

This issue also exists for the Joint Rules, the rules of the two chambers serving together. 

 

In 2017, Minority Leader Brad Jones filed an amendment to the Joint Rules to require committee votes to be published on the Legislature’s website. The amendment failed 38 to 121 (RC #19). Rep. Decker voted NO. 

 

In 2019, Jones again filed such an amendment to the Joint Rules. It failed 49 to 110 (RC#11). Rep. Decker voted NO. In 2019, the Senate, however, included posting committee votes on the Legislature’s website in their version of the Joint Rules, a sticking point between the chambers that has yet to be resolved. 

 

The House’s version of the Joint Rules, passed in 2021, made an update to the language: “The aggregate tally of members voting in the affirmative, members not voting and members reserving their rights on an individual petition at an executive session or poll of a committee shall be posted on the website of the General Court and the names of members voting in the negative on an individual petition at an executive session or poll of a committee shall be posted on the website of the General Court.” 

 

Rep. Erika Uyterhoeven (D-Somerville) filed an amendment here as well (in February 2021) to assert that a roll call is not just a tally with a list of dissenting names but an actual list of yay’s and nay’s, etc. It failed 36 to 122. Rep. Decker voted NO and also spoke against the amendment on the floor (see est. 53:00). The House’s updated language, however, has never been formally included due to the House’s intransigence toward more robust Senate language: the bodies have operated on old rules on auto-pilot (with the exception of necessary updates). 

Decker’s claim that “committee votes are already public” is a reference to part of Joint Rule #4: “All committee members shall have an opportunity to sign a form accompanying a report of the committee signifying approval of, dissent or abstention from a report of a joint standing committee before the report is final or filed. No signature shall be valid unless the report to which the signature is affixed includes the substantially complete text of the legislation being reported.“ 

 

In lay terms: legislators can formally go to the clerk’s office to file a dissent, and then it will be printed in the journal (i.e., report) for that day -- a report buried on the site and hard to read by non-experts. 

 

The Senate does post the recorded votes of committees when a bill advances to the floor, designating a tab that displays the vote of each member (example). No similar tab exists for committee votes in the House despite the update to the House rules in 2021. 

 

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