Top Democrats in the Massachusetts Legislature bashed local media outlets for critical coverage of Beacon Hill’s inability to adhere to self-imposed deadlines but pledged to put forward internal reforms this year aimed at opening up and bolstering public confidence in the legislative process.
In twin speeches delivered Wednesday at the start of the 2025-2026 term, House Speaker Ron Mariano and Senate President Karen Spilka slammed local political reporters for what they argued was a failure by the press to report on the policies that cleared the two chambers over the past two years.
Spilka, an Ashland Democrat who sailed back to the Senate’s top leadership post, said the Legislature’s “accomplishments are consistently overshadowed by a persistent negative media narrative.”
“In an age when local news has been obliterated, state and local stories get bypassed in favor of national ones, and the major outlets we have here in Massachusetts choose to report more on personalities than policy, we can understand how frustrating it can be to try to get a handle on what is happening at the State House,” she said, according to her remarks as prepared for delivery.
Mariano and Spilka delivered their speeches only days after closing out a two-year session that saw lawmakers blow past major deadlines as they struggled with inter-branch disagreements but eventually finish work on major bills covering everything from prescription drugs to economic development.
Mariano, who House Democrats reelected to the Speaker’s Office, decried the coverage of the last legislative session, telling representatives during his opening remarks that the “perception of our work is often at odds with what we know to be the truth about what we’ve accomplished.”
The Quincy Democrat said legislators have a “responsibility” to ensure voters feel they have an “efficient and transparent Legislature that is responsive to their concerns.”
“So, to that end, the House will consider a number of rules reforms next month when we have our rules debate, from potential changes to the legislative calendar to reforms aimed at bolstering public confidence in the legislative process,” Mariano said without elaborating on what internal tweaks he wants to pursue.
Legislators are required under their own rules to tie off formal work for the two-year session in the latter portion of the second half of their term.
But House and Senate Democrats left critical bills unfinished when they hit the deadline over the summer, leaving lawmakers facing a wave of criticism and advocates calling for changes to the legislative calendar, a more efficient workflow, and added transparency.
Spilka said she too would commit to “a series of changes that will build upon the Senate’s commitment to an open and transparent process of legislating.”
That includes a proposal to give groups of lawmakers negotiating bills behind closed doors —- known as conference committees — the entirety of the two-year session to produce a deal instead of forcing them to finish their work by July 31 in the second half of the term.
“And speaking of conference committees, I am going to ask negotiators on conference committees to work towards more openness in committee meetings, starting with working to ensure the first meeting is open,” Spilka said.
The Ashland Democrat said she wants to move up the deadline for reporting bills out of legislative committees from the second year to the first year of the legislative session, a change she argued “will allow us to keep a steadier pace of vetting, debating, and passing bills before the end of formal session gridlock.”
Mariano said the Legislature, which is often described as one of the least transparent governmental bodies in the country for its closed-door dealmaking, finished a session that was “incredibly productive by any reasonable, objective measure, as we reached an agreement on every policy bill” that made it into House-Senate negotiating committees.
“Yet, as you all know, the coverage of the past two years hasn’t always reflected that,” he said. “Now, it would be easy under those circumstances, to stand here in defiance, and say that the work should speak for itself. The reality, however, is that doing good work isn’t enough if our constituents don’t feel as though they can easily follow the process.”
Spilka said the Senate would embark on a “statewide listening tour.”
“Our media landscape is fractured and distorted by algorithms designed to deliver profit to powerful companies. And so, to ensure that we are focusing on what’s vital while delivering news about the work we are doing, we must engage directly with those important to us – our constituents,” she said.
In her wide-ranging speech, Spilka teed up future action on everything from additional healthcare reforms focused on primary care delivery in the wake of the Steward Health Care collapse, revisiting “some aspects” of K-12 funding policy, and taking another shot at “shifting the burden of brokers’ fees from renters.”
The Ashland Democrat also said she wants the Legislature to pass controversial legislation that would end the automatic prosecution of 18-year-olds as adults by extending the juvenile justice system to include the age group.
Supporters have said the move would increase public safety but opponents argued the change could put a burden on the court system.
“It is unjust that some young people — by virtue of geography, race, ethnicity or family background — will be robbed of opportunities to create a life full of meaning and happiness because of an early entanglement with the criminal legal system,” Spilka said.
Mariano said that House lawmakers’ ability to work with counterparts in the Senate and Gov. Maura Healey’s administration will “now be of heightened importance” with President-elect Donald Trump set to take office later this month.
“Just as the Legislature acted to protect our residents during the first Trump administration, it will once again be our responsibility to step up when we can in the face of federal mismanagement and decreased federal support,” he said.
Spilka said the results of the November election make clear “that people are hurting.”
“They are being squeezed by economic realities that feel beyond their control, and they have lost trust in so many of our institutions – including the people they elect to represent them,” she said.