The Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance is commending Senate Minority Leader Bruce Tarr (R-Gloucester), State Senator Ryan Fattman (R-Sutton), and his Republican colleagues for taking a bold stand against the broken and opaque legislative processes on Beacon Hill by preventing a complex and controversial energy bill (S 2967) from advancing during an informal session today. By definition, informal sessions are meant to address routine and non-controversial legislation.

“The Massachusetts legislature is a broken system. Today, they tried to jam through a very complex and controversial energy bill without a recorded roll call vote. Only in the Massachusetts legislature does passing a major bill without the presence of a majority of lawmakers, or a recorded vote make any sense. The actions by Senate Republicans to delay a vote for the sake of transparency should be commended. The legislature should not be applauded for meeting two weeks before election day to try to ram through a policy they had two years to work on,” said Paul Diego Craney, spokesman for the Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance.

“This energy bill deals with expensive policy topics that will cause substantial increases in costs to ratepayers and continue to undermine the reliability of our power grid. The bill is so contentious that even the Democratic supermajorities were unable to pass it before adjourning the formal session in August,” continued Craney. 

“The most secretive legislature in the country is attempting to push through one of the most far encompassing bills of the year using a process reserved for noncontroversial measures. If there’s ever been an institution in need of the transparency an independent audit would provide, it’s the Massachusetts Legislature. If there is any policy proposal they should be adopting two weeks before the election, it's allowing for the state auditor to audit the legislature,” Craney concluded.