Jim Wallace
When I first started with GOAL, nearly 25 years ago, I already had a little experience lobbying at the Massachusetts State House as a volunteer for the League of Essex County Sportsmen. We call it working the building. For someone jumping into lobbying professionally, I had the advantage of a little head start.
Back then, the State House was typically busy Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. The building was full of legislators, staff, lobbyists, advocates, you name it. Because the building was full of people, I got to build relationships with legislators and their staff. I also got to know folks who worked for a host of different organizations, which became very important later on when I could make complex alliances with groups, like Mass Audubon, to save the Division of Fisheries and Wildlife on more than one occasion. All of those relationships were vital to anyone working the building. It was how we got things, sometimes very hard and complex things, done.
Whether it was elected officials or other advocates, we saw each other so often we got to know each other on a fairly personal level. This is very important in gaining trust and respect in any business.
For my first two decades, the building was especially busy during the annual budget debates. Back then they would take up every single proposed amendment one at a time. I remember being there until 3:00 am with fellow lobbyist and activists. Because of the relationships we built, we would often alert one another if we knew someone’s amendment was coming up. The House budget would normally have over 1,000 amendments to go through. This would normally take four to five days.
Aside from budget sessions, some of my most productive days were simply walking the building with no particular meetings or agenda. The amount of information gathered and relayed through casual conversations were priceless to everyone involved. Then came COVID.
The Massachusetts State House was closed for over two years. Longer than any other state house in the country. Even the Boston Globe wrote an article about it. No one in the building cared.
Recently I spoke at a political science class at UMass Amherst. The class was about what it like being the executive director of a non-profit who is trying to accomplish something in congress or the state house. I spoke for over an hour in total about how things used to be. Then I had to be honest with them about what exists now.
I told the class that the most dangerous thing about COVID was not the disease, the mask mandates, or even the vaccines. In fact, the scariest part was that government, on every level, reached to find its boundaries and didn’t find any. They learned that, other than elections, they didn’t need us and no longer had any desire to deal with the citizenry.
Being honest with the students, I put to them that they were going to have to figure this out. What we are facing as advocates is brand new. The Massachusetts State House has become an empty vessel. I stressed that their generation was going to have to figure out how to access public officials that don’t want to be accessed.
Case in point – look up any government office in Massachusetts and try to find out who is in charge and how to reach them. It is nearly impossible and that is on purpose.
These days, the majority of office doors in the State House are locked. Legislators and staff rarely bother to show up unless there is a vote to be taken. Normally they will hold a private meeting to discuss on what, and how, they are going to vote. That is followed by a few orchestrated questions. Then they vote and leave.
The first budget session after COVID, Mike Harris (GOAL’s Director of Public Policy) and I went to the State House to reconnect with everyone after COVID. It was a ghost town. The proposed budget was over $50 billion, and the halls were empty. We couldn’t believe what we were seeing. Even on the House floor there was no debate, only a few pre-approved speeches supporting something the Speaker wanted. The voted, they left.
Essentially, COVID struck the State House with a different malady, it literally has lost its soul and with it any real connection to we the people. I am not sure what the future will bring for our form of government. One very loud clue was the passage of the most recent state gun laws. The Massachusetts citizen backlash was so overwhelming that a House Speaker was stopped in his tracks for months. Then they renewed their efforts, suspended or twisted every procedural rule they could to push the legislation along. Neither Mike, nor I, had ever witnessed anything like it.
The simple answer is that COVID taught them not to worry about the citizenry any longer. COVID taught them that they could abuse, restrict, and trample us with impunity.
This is what happens when your state house loses its soul.
