The Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance (MassFiscal) made the following statement today in response to Speaker Ron Mariano and his Democratic colleagues spending billions of dollars in COVID relief money behind closed doors.

Over 1,000 amendments were offered in the spending frenzy, yet they have been deliberated out of public view and consolidated into just four amendments while some have been withdrawn or left out completely. Speaker Mariano and his House members went behind closed doors to negotiate what spending projects should advance, only to quickly vote them through without any public discussion or debate. Despite these federal funds being for COVID relief and obtained through excessive state tax payments, the House spent the money in their usual opaque process without any public debate by House members.  

“Today the Massachusetts House once again proved to the rest of the world why they maintain the top spot as the most secretive and opaque legislative body in America. Only Speaker Ron Mariano would come up with a plan to negotiate all the 1,000 + amendments behind closed doors at off-hours of the evening and not offer any debate on the floor. Transparency is replaced with opaqueness and the public suffers as democracy continues to decline in our state,” stated Paul Diego Craney, spokesperson for Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance. 

“Regular people have no way of knowing the deliberations behind how their tax dollars are spent in the Massachusetts House of Representatives,” concluded Craney.