BOSTON â House lawmakers, including all members of the Berkshire County delegation, rejected a proposed change in legislative rules Wednesday that advocates said would have increased transparency.
The change would have made the details of all committee votes public and required that public testimony on bills be available to the public upon request.
State Reps. John Barrett III, D-North Adams; Paul Mark, D-Peru; Tricia Farley-Bouvier, D-Pittsfield; and William âSmittyâ Pignatelli, D-Lenox, joined the majority in the 122-36 vote against an amendment that would have aligned the House language on committee votes and testimony with the Senateâs proposal, which advocacy groups such as Act on Mass have said provide constituents with better information.
Massachusetts House Democrats’ push for transparency attracts mostly GOP support
Updated Feb 25, 2021;
By Chris Van Buskirk and Sam Doran | State House News Service
House lawmakers spent over an hour locked in a tense debate Wednesday afternoon on an unsuccessful transparency amendment to the Legislature’s 2021-2022 Joint Rules before ultimately adopting a rules package to govern interactions between the two branches that strips a few elements of the Senate’s proposed reforms.
The House approved a rules package on a 128-31 vote that would keep a notice requirement for committee hearings at 72 hours, rather than the one week proposed by the Senate; make public only the names of committee members who vote against favorably reporting a bill, instead of providing a complete accounting of how all members vote, as the Senate version would; and remove Senate language which would have mandated that committees share copies of public testimony when asked by members of the public.
Massachusetts House, Senate differ on public access to legislative testimony
Updated Feb 24, 2021;
By Matt Murphy | State House News Service
House leaders have put together a package of rules to govern how joint committees and the two legislative branches will work together over the next two years, recommending a different approach from the Senate to how committees should share written testimony, publish votes online and advise the public of upcoming hearings.
The proposal drafted by House leaders shortens the required window for advance notice of a committee hearing from one week in the Senate proposal to 72 hours, and it does not require that public testimony submitted electronically to a committee be made available to the public if requested.
By Jeannette Hinkle
Cape Cod Times
By the time John “Jack” Yunits Jr. assumed the role of Barnstable County administrator in February 2016, most county governments in the state had been disbanded.
Critics held that the regional form of government was redundant, a waste of taxpayer money, and by 2010, Yunits said, county government in Massachusetts had all but disappeared.
“But as I got onto the Cape, I began to realize that it had an immense value,” said Yunits, a former Brockton mayor. “Some of the smaller towns didn t have the financial capacity to grab the resources necessary to do specific bidding, to do professional studies, to work in a regional way by combining assets and leveraging that combination of assets into something more financially impactful.”
John Yunits steps down as Barnstable County Administrator capecodtimes.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from capecodtimes.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.