A more transparent legislature

The state can — and should — improve accessibility to the General Assembly

When the Virginia General Assembly convenes in January, lawmakers will hit the ground running. The so-called “long” session lasts 60 days, compared to 45 during the “short” sessions in odd-numbered years, in which legislature will consider more than 3,500 bills.

That’s a massive workload for lawmakers and their staffs. It’s a challenge for the everdwindling number of media members who cover the General Assembly. And for the general public? Forget tracking every detail of the legislature’s work while balancing the demands of work and home life.

That said, it’s been easier in recent years for someone on the Eastern Shore, in the southwest or in Northern Virginia to track bills through the session as well as someone in Richmond. The internet has decentralized and democratized access, and lawmakers helped by broadcasting meetings of the House and Senate, an invaluable resource.

But Virginia could do much better when it comes to putting the General Assembly’s work within easy reach of the people it serves.

In 2015, a coalition of open-government advocates formed “Transparency Virginia,” an initiative that tracked bills through the legislative process to determine how easy it was to follow and record lawmakers’ work.

In that first year, volunteers observed numerous occasions when committee and subcommittee meeting times and locations were changed without sufficient notice, a bevy of bills which were killed without recorded votes, and others which were dismissed without reasonable consideration.

Those obstacles made it difficult for citizens invested in an issue to follow legislation or attend hearings, especially when they are suddenly rescheduled. Not everyone lives in Richmond, after all, so a sudden cancellation means another drive to the capital or missing a meeting entirely.

And without recorded votes on bills — especially in committee or subcommittee — there is no accountability for lawmakers, who never have to worry their constituents will know they dismissed this bill or that one. That’s the opposite of how a legislature should operate.

Those meetings are public, so it’s reasonable to think citizens or media members could create their own records. But committee and subcommittee work was never broadcast or recorded — the meeting rooms weren’t wired for video — so it was impossible for even an organized group, such as Transparency Virginia, to accomplish.

The General Assembly has, to its credit, improved in most of those areas. And gratitude is due the Republican leadership in both chambers which, when faced with evidence of the problem, moved to change how lawmakers conducted the people’s business.

Transparency Virginia issued an annual report, showing progress for the most part. And when the legislature moved out of the General Assembly building as the state constructs a new one, numerous lawmakers signed a letter calling for committee meetings to be broadcast from the Pocahontas Building, a more technologically advanced facility that is the legislature’s interim home.

November’s election promises to usher in new leadership at the General Assembly. The expectation is the Democrats at the helm of the House and Senate will extend their Republican counterparts’ commitment to greater transparency.

However, Transparency Virginia sent a letter this week to leaders in both chambers, from both parties, asking that they continue to take steps toward openness by livestreaming subcommittee meetings, adopting a unified meeting notification system and acting on all bills rather than leaving some in committee, among other requests.

These aren’t particularly vexing initiatives for lawmakers to carry out, nor would they be expensive to implement. But they could make sure that Virginians can better follow their representatives’ work in Richmond and will make for a more informed commonwealth.

Lawmakers should pay special attention to these reasonable requests and do what’s necessary to put them into effect, recognizing the value of a more transparent, accessible state government.