The Massachusetts Legislature website is one of the least transparent government websites in the U.S., according to a transparency report card released by the Sunlight Foundation last Wednesday.
The website, which was given the worst grade of ‘F’ by the government watchdog Sunlight Foundation, was faulted for not posting roll call votes online, having a buggy and broken site much of the time and not retaining records before 2009.
“The biggest loser here are the residents of Massachusetts,” said Liz Bartolomeo, the communications manager at the Sunlight Foundation. “When they want to go online and see about a bill they read about and how their local representative voted on it, they can’t do it.”
Out of all 50 states and the District of Columbia, only five states, including Massachusetts, received an ‘F’ rating. The methodology for grading focused on the wealth of information provided on a given legislative website, the timeliness posted information, the permanence of content posted and the ease of electronic access, among other factors.
“You need to have the most recent version of Java Script to access the Mass. website, that’s a little problematic,” Bartolomeo said. “One thing we are also seeing is if anyone wanted to go to the Mass. legislature website and look for something older than 2009, they are not able to find that information online.”
Tom Nash, news editor at transparency watchdog and public records request service MuckRock, said as a journalist he has had trouble accessing legislative records.
“I’ve tried looking up bills and it’s hard to find them,” Nash said. ”That’s information that other states have figured out how to do. They’re always pushing to show Massachusetts as an incubator of technology and they should lead by example. Democracy isn’t working if they aren’t going to show information on their site.”
Bartolomeo said since the report cards were posted last week, a couple of states, including Rhode Island and New York, reached out to Sunlight and managed to bump up their ratings by tweaking their sites. Bartolomeo said Massachusetts officials have not contacted Sunlight regarding rating.
Mass. Sen. Jamie Eldrige said the “F” rating was fairly accurate, and an overhaul is needed for www.malegislature.gov.
“I think that the rating should have been higher, but not by much,” Eldridge said. “We are making steps to have a more transparent government, but there is still work to do.”
Eldridge and others amended the rules of the Senate last week in a move to make roll call votes available online.
“The Clerk shall make available on the official website of the General Court the results of all roll call votes not later than 48 hours after such vote is taken, not including quorum calls, in a manner easily identifiable, searchable and conspicuously located,” according to amended Senate rule 8A. “The Clerk shall include the number of the roll call and the title of the matter voted upon.”
This rule will take effect by May, and Eldrige said it would surely increase transparency online.
“It’s important to provide the votes we take each week so they can be seen by our constituents,” Eldridge said.
Eldrige also said the Senate will soon provide voting information in committees, so constituents can see what is brought to the floor and who is voting on bringing it there. This rule was proposed as a joint rule for both houses of Congress, but only the Senate adopted it, Eldridge said.
Nash said it is inexcusable how hard the legislative website is to navigate.
“There is no excuse for it,” Nash said. “At this stage, it is an embarrassment that they would sit and not do anything where they should let people understand what they are doing. They are hiding what they are voting.”
Kyle Plantz contributed to the reporting of this article.
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