Winchester Delegation and Mass. Legislature Finalize Rules Providing Greater Transparency and Public Access

BOSTON—State Senators Jason Lewis and Pat Jehlen and State Representatives Michael Day and Michelle Ciccolo joined their colleagues in the Massachusetts Legislature in adopting new legislative rules to make lawmaking more transparent, efficient, and accessible to the public. These rules will govern the legislative process, joint committees, and interactions between the House of Representatives and the Senate for the 2025-2026 legislative session.

Under the new rules, legislative committees will post plain-language bill summaries online, provide the public with more advance notice of hearings and make committee votes and attendance publicly available. To improve legislative efficiency, the legislature adjusted the calendar to allow more time to pass meaningful policies. Committees may now act independently on bills from their respective chambers, and formal lawmaking will continue throughout the full two-year session.

“Building greater trust and confidence in government by improving transparency and accountability is critical for a healthy democracy,” said Senator Jason Lewis. “I have long championed efforts to improve the transparency of state and local government, including being the lead Senate sponsor of the last major update to the state’s public records law. These new rules will further open up the legislative process and make it easier for the public to see how we operate and to hold us accountable.”

“I am proud to have worked with my colleagues in both chambers to craft and adopt rules that ensure transparency and accountability,” said Representative Michael Day. “These reforms reflect our shared commitment to upholding the public trust and strengthening our legislative process.”

“I'm very happy the new rules provide more transparency on committee votes, earlier timelines for action, and more ability for senators to report bills out of committees,” said Senator Patricia Jehlen.

“Our government works best when it is responsive, accessible, and accountable for all our citizens,” said Representative Michelle Ciccolo. “These new Joint Rules will allow our legislature to be more efficient and more transparent, ensuring that our democracy remains strong.”

Key provisions of the new joint rules include:

• Increasing public notice of joint committee hearings from a minimum of three days to ten days and requiring a schedule of hearing dates to be posted each session.
• Instructing House and Senate chairs of joint committees to poll members of the committee from their respective branch on bills that were filed in that branch before returning bills to their respective branches, with certain exceptions including for budgets and constitutional amendments.
• Allowing the public to participate either in-person or remotely in joint committee hearings.
• Requiring joint committee votes and attendance to be posted on the Legislature’s website.
• Moving up the bill reporting deadline for joint committees by two months to the first Wednesday of December in the first year of the two-year legislative session to give the chambers more time to consider bills.
• Requiring plain-language summaries of all bills to be posted on the Legislature’s website in time for their public hearings and requiring written testimony on bills to be made publicly available after their hearings.
• Requiring the first meeting of conference committees to be open to the public and ensuring a minimum of 24 hours between a conference committee report filing and a legislative vote.
• Updating the Legislature’s formal lawmaking calendar to allow the Legislature to meet in formal session after July 31 in the second year of the legislative session to take up reports of conference committees formed on or before July 31, appropriation bills filed after July 31, and gubernatorial vetoes or amendments.
• Instructing the Joint Committee on Rules to conduct a comprehensive review of the joint rules at the end of each two-year session, including a public hearing to solicit feedback from the public.

In addition to these new joint rules, the House and Senate approved their own chamber’s rules in February to govern their internal operations.