Lack of Transparency in Government
by Senator Steve Green
At the time of writing this, session has just adjourned. A lot of work is left undone. A special session is imminent. It’s just a question of when that will be.
I want to be clear: our work is incomplete because House Democrats failed to show up for the first three weeks of session. They got paid not to be here. Because of this, we are behind schedule. A few bills got done before our constitutional adjournment date of May 19. But many were left untouched. In fact, most of our big budget items still need to get done: Health and Human Services, Education Finance, Taxes, and more. We’ll have a lot to tackle when special Session comes. But the reality is this situation was avoidable.
As we wait for special session to be called, I wanted to make folks aware of something that has been bothering me – something that has only gotten worse year after year, and that’s the lack of transparency in our process.
Every year we go through the same process: bills get introduced, they get referred to committees, the committee chairs lay the bills over to decide if they want to include them in a future bill, and that’s it. By the time regular committee hearings are over, committee chairs work with their staff to write the final budget for their committee area. There is little discussion on this – other senators on that committee are not given the opportunity for input. That means most of us are seeing the final bills for the first time when they’re coming to committee for a vote. There is little collaboration at all. And then when we finally hear about what’s in the bill, even if committee chairs accept our amendments, they can strip them out later. That means most senators can’t even inform their constituents of what is moving in bills until it’s almost too late to even do anything about it.
The bill then heads to the floor. When it passes, it usually goes to a conference committee so the House and Senate can match up language in their bills to make one singular bill. Unfortunately, we don’t see any transparency in this part of the process either. The Senate Chair and House Chair have been making these decisions behind closed doors with no input from those on conference committees.
This is a terrible process. If the average Minnesotan can’t follow along with what is happening, we are doing a disservice to governing. The public should have a chance to weigh in on everything we do. But Senators that represent those folks have been cut out of the process. It’s wrong.
And somehow this year in between session and special session, the process is even worse. Not only are the conference committees now called “working groups,” but these groups aren’t meeting in public. And if they can’t come to a decision, then the final decision is kicked over to the governor and caucus leaders, again, further reducing transparency.
When Minnesota voters elected their representatives, they sent them to St. Paul to be a voice for the people they represent, but that opportunity is being taken away from them. Minnesotans expect transparency in their government because they want to know about the laws that will affect them. They’re tired of backroom deals. Yet that’s what we get every year.
Because of this lack of transparency, we don’t know what the final budget will look like. The reality is, it will be decided by a small group of people with no input from the public. Once these bills come to the floor in their final form, we cannot offer amendments to change them. We can only vote “yes” or “no.”
Minnesotans have been asking for transparency in the process, and this is the opposite of that. Because of this process, most won’t know what is included in these bills until they’re passed and done. This is no way to govern. Our state deserves better.