Newspaper Article

SPOTLIGHT; POWER AND PRIVILEGE; RULES ALLOW 2-MAN CONTROL, MANY ABUSES

This report was prepared by the Globe Spotlight Team and State House reporter Laurence Collins. The Spotlight Team consists of editor Stephen Kurkjian, reporters Thomas Palmer and

1983

Overview

- SPENDING: The Massachusetts Legislature has become the third- most costly lawmaking body in the nation, exceeded only by New York and Michigan. Most of the money is spent in Massachusetts to pay the growing number of legislative employees, all of whom are hired on the ultimate approval of the House Speaker or Senate president. Massachusetts leads the other major states in the hiring of ex- legislators for the legislative payroll, another costly practice that is said to foster loyalty among the rank and file. - OPENNESS OF PROCESS: Massachusetts has the most absolute one- party control of the 11 largest state legislatures in the country. With such an edge, the Democrats who control the Legislature do not bother to go through the deliberative process used in other major legislatures. Those processes include holding frequent party caucuses to map legislative strategy, spending some reasonably determined amount of time debating the merits of bills, and building coalitions with groups independent of leadership. From the outside, the legislative process is even more impenetrable. The Massachusetts Legislature, unlike those in most of the 10 other major states, is not covered by the state's open-meeting law. And Massachusetts has the only state legislature among the major states not covered by a freedom-of-information law. Dr. Malcolm Jewell, a professor of political science at the University ofKentucky, has researched the operation of the Massachusetts Legislature and written two books focusing on state politics nationwide. \"Compared to other states, Massachusetts has a highly centralized legislature,\" Jewell said in a recent telephone interview. \"If you ranked the states from 1 to 50 in power - sheer, raw power - of the leadership, I suspect Massachusetts would be in the top five.\"

• Publisher: Boston Globe Media Partners, LLC