THAT JOHN KEENAN isn’t anybody’s idea of a rabble-rousing bomb tosser is, in some ways, exactly the point.
The eight-term lawmaker cuts a moderate political profile among the 35 Democrats who dominate the 40-member state Senate. When he speaks on the floor, it’s usually in the carefully modulated tones of a lawyer with decades of experience in the often plodding ways of public office, starting with a stint on the Quincy Zoning Board of Appeals while still in law school.
Yet the 60-year-old lawmaker caused a minor stir last week when he was the only Democratic state senator who did not vote to reelect Karen Spilka as Senate president. Keenan voted “present” in the roll call to choose a leader for the new two-year session. In a statement he issued after the vote, Keenan said he held back support for Spilka “because changes are needed” in how the Senate goes about its business.
The changes he wants would hardly seem to constitute a radical remake of a deliberative legislative body charged with carrying out the people’s business in a representative democracy. But Keenan’s views – and willingness to rock the boat to make his point – made him stand out in a Legislature that has become increasingly inclined to operate out of public view and has seemed to thumb its nose at long-standing calls for greater transparency and public accountability.
Keenan says the failure to meet the biennial deadline for reporting out bills, waiving rules when they’re inconvenient, and the failure to pass joint rules with the House have all eroded public trust. His biggest concern, however, centers on the growing tendency to pass big pieces of legislation by unrecorded voice votes, with lawmakers often not even given enough time to read lengthy bills before they’re quickly gaveled into law.
“If people don’t trust the way we make laws, how do they trust the laws we make?” Keenan said in an interview.
Spilka has defended her leadership in recent days by pointing to a set of big bills passed in the last session, covering everything from economic development and climate change to veterans services and free community college. “We have had a historically productive two-year legislative session,” she told reporters following her New Year’s Day election to another term as Senate president.
Keenan doesn’t take issue with that claim. The “product was good,” he said of the legislation passed in the last session. “They were important bills and it was good they made their way to the governor’s desk,” he said. But the process, he said, is severely wanting.
Keenan said it’s not unusual to hear from constituents with an interest in a pending bill and have to tell them it recently emerged onto the Senate floor with little advance notice and has already been passed. When they then ask how he voted, “I have to say I didn’t vote on it,” Keenan said, explaining to constituents that a bill was passed by a voice vote with no roll call taken.
Keenan said the Senate took close to 700 roll calls during its 2015-16 session, but recorded just 252 in the session that just concluded and roughly the same number in the two-year session before it. He said the striking decrease has been the result of more bills passed by voice vote and more bundling of often unrelated issues in big omnibus bills. In either case, he said, the result is “we are less accountable to our constituents.”
The short-circuiting of process has gotten so extreme, Keenan said, said lengthy bills on health care (64 pages) and pharmaceutical coverage (46 pages) emerged from conference committees in late December and were brought to the floor for votes without even the usual presentation in a Democratic caucus where members typically get briefed on complex pieces of legislation and can ask questions about their content.
“The more quickly we move without regard to the process, the more people we represent lose faith in the process, and not just in the individuals that represent them but in the institutions that serve the Commonwealth,” Keenan said.
For evidence of that, Keenan said, one need look no further than the November ballot question authorizing the state auditor to audit the Legislature, which 72 percent of voters supported. “I do think that the public’s voice is being heard. I think the ballot question certainly crystallized the issue,” he said.
While Democratic leaders of the Legislature characterized the ballot question as an affront, Keenan viewed it as a helpful prod and is a rare Democratic lawmaker who says he voted for it.
Keenan said he shares concerns that have been raised over “constitutional boundaries” – that the audit law be used to encroach on separation of powers issues. But he thinks there are areas the auditor can explore, including procurement processes and workplace harassment policies, without stepping over that line, and that the vote sends a broader message about flagging public confidence in the Legislature.
That message seems to have been heard on Beacon Hill, where Spilka and House Speaker Ron Mariano have both, in recent days, sought to race to the head of the transparency parade the ballot question helped set in motion and declare themselves its leaders.
When asked about Keenan’s protest vote for Senate president and the concerns he has raised, Spilka’s office pointed to her speech last week to senators after being elected to a new term as the chamber’s leader.
“I am committing to a series of changes that will build upon the Senate’s commitment to an open and transparent process of legislating,” she declared.
Spilka outlined a set of reforms she plans to pursue, including making public the votes of all senators in joint committees and calling on the House to do the same, moving up the bill reporting deadline the first year of each two-year session, and continuing work on a “digital press room” on the Senate website to make information more readily accessible to the public. She also said she’ll also encourage conference committees – small panels of House and Senate members that meet to work out differences between versions of bills passed by the two chambers – to “work toward more openness in committee meetings,” which typically carry out all their discussions in closed-door sessions.
Keenan said he’s glad to see all the attention suddenly being paid to how the Legislature operates. “I think there is a way to get to a good product and make sure the process is participatory and reflective of the views of the Legislature and the public,” he said. “I think it remains to be seen whether there is substantive change or change that is nibbling around the edges.”
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