Craig Urges Transparency At State House

8 Point Plan for Transparency

Boston, MA. . . Yesterday at the State House Shawn Craig, Republican candidate for State Representative and Iraq war veteran, joined State Representatives Marc Lombardo, Shaunna O’Connell, Geoff Diehl, Jim Lyons, and Leah Cole in calling for more transparency at the State House. Craig pledged to push for an 8 Point Sunlight Legislative Plan when elected.

“This plan rightly addresses the secrecy and barriers to access experienced by and among legislators. Bringing about greater transparency inside the General Court is a necessary step toward political accountability” said Craig.

“The people of the Commonwealth deserve openness and transparency within the legislative process. It is time to end the backroom deals,” urged Lombardo. “Today we are standing here to pledge transparency to a very opaque process.”

The 8 point plan includes:

- Ending the bundling of amendments.

- Standing with any member who wants a Roll Call vote

- Requiring committee votes be published online.

- Allowing any member access to the can so they can review all of the latest changes in legislation

- Prohibiting the passage of spending bills in informal session

- Require conference committees meetings be open to the press and public

- Requiring the Ethics Committee to be bi-partisan.

- Ending the legislative exemption from the public records law (Constituent work would be exempt for privacy reasons.)

“By shedding more light on the process, we can restore the people’s faith in our legislative process. We need to put the people ahead of politics and this plan is a major step forward for doing that,” said O’Connell. “Last week we found out that the welfare conference committee only met once and no one knows who took a portion out of the bill.”

“I am pleased to support this initiative. Secrecy doesn’t help the process. Sunlight is a good disinfectant,” added Diehl. “Maybe if there was more transparency, then foolish tax bills would not be passed so quickly.”

“We should not be passing $4 billion interim budgets during an informal session,” said Lyons. “The public and rank-and-file members have a right to know. That’s why I am proud to take the Transparency pledge.”

During the budget debate this year hundreds of amendments were bundled together. Members were only given 30 minutes to review. There is no way for members to know the full content.