(The Center Square) – Men and women who sat down at the long table crammed into the tiny room time and again this year each represented about 260,000 Pennsylvanians and were there to conduct the people’s business.
They were Pennsylvania state senators, and groups of them known as committees met frequently in the space once known as the Senate Private Anteroom. One day during regular Senate business in the nearby, cavernous Senate chamber, seven committee meetings were called for the little room. Meetings there, as elsewhere, had motions, votes, and the usual political jostling.
What they didn’t have was cameras.
In the main Senate chamber and other committee meeting rooms, debate is livestreamed and recorded. Not so in what is now called the “Rules room.”
Republicans who controlled the Pennsylvania Senate for more than 30 years made frequent use of that room. Now, with control about to switch to Democrats, some see it as an example of a more broad failure by Republicans to emphasize transparency.
“Reducing transparency stifles the press’ ability to inform the public,” said Sen. Jarrett Coleman, a Lehigh Valley Republican. “The Rules room should have cameras, or committee meetings or meetings where official action is being taken should not occur in that room.”
Coleman, a first-term senator who on Nov. 3 lost his re-election bid, has criticized government dynamics that he believes thwart openness. His last day of work for the Senate will be Nov. 30.
The Senate Republican caucus, he said, should “re-evaluate its treatment of transparency” and bear in mind that “legislative efficiency isn’t necessarily the best thing for taxpayers.”
In recent months, Democrats who control the state House routinely sent out emails on Sunday evening about bills that were expected to get votes in the week ahead. Similar emails from the Republican caucus controlling the Senate came an hour or two – or even less – before the start of the week’s first session.
And in a recent appearance before the Pennsylvania Press Club, Senate Republican Majority Leader Joe Pittman of Indiana County was asked to name a change that could lead to a more efficient legislative process.
“Take the cameras out of the chamber,” Pittman responded. When the questioner – a longtime member of the media – appeared surprised by the answer, Pittman said, “People like to talk in front of cameras.”
That was a “lighthearted comment,” Pittman’s communications director, Kate Flessner, said in a Thursday email. Pittman, she said, was referring to “elected officials liking to talk in front of cameras” in response to a question on “how to make things move more quickly.”
Flessner said in the email that the caucus has been a leader on transparency. There have been press conferences, media gaggles, one-on-one interviews, and responded to written questions, she said.
The same-day providing of notices to the media about legislative work – cited by The Center Square in questions to Pittman – has “previously not received complaints,” Flessner said.
And the use of the Rules room actually happens “due to the necessity of the public transparency process,” she said.
Meetings in the room called “off the floor” during a session day might be done that way “due to quorum considerations, and both Republican and Democratic members being unavailable during non-session times,” Flessner said. Those meetings, like all others, are advertised ahead of time as required by the state Sunshine Act.
Disagreement from a Republican
Disagreement about the Rules room came this week from another member of Pittman’s own caucus, state Sen. Dawn Keefer of York County. In an interview, she pointed to Senate Republicans’ longstanding insistence on transparency by local government entities.
“How do we demand it of all them and not follow suit?” she said.
Keefer said that even if the Rules room is small and historic in nature, technicians could figure out a way to install cameras.
Believing that Pittman’s Press Club comment indicated some senators have a tendency to grandstand in the chamber, Keefer said she has not seen it. Cameras, she said, should be rolling anytime lawmakers are taking public action.
“I don’t feel like people are up talking for a long time,” she said. “It does not warrant taking them out of any chamber.”
In the Republican majority, Keefer chairs the Local Government Committee. The transparency questions, she said, brought to mind for Keefer the multiple proposals she has heard on limiting Right-to-Know requests.
Groups have told her, as head of the committee, that numerous or “vexatious requests” have led to a “weaponization” of the Right-to-Know process. She said the groups want lawmakers to curtail the process.
“I don’t think the solution to that is less transparency,” she said.
No cameras and little space
In the “Rules room,” space between the backs of the senators’ chairs and the walls is exceptionally tight. Just before an important meeting, would-be spectators like aides, lobbyists, and journalists participate in polite yet frustrating pardon-me-excuse-me scenarios as they seek pieces of precious space.
Lurking in the back of their minds is the fact that if they do not see the debate with their own eyes, they will not see it at all.
The House Democratic caucus chairman, Rep. Robert Matzie of Beaver County, said that holding “meetings in closets without cameras” produces a situation where “obviously, there is not sunshine.”
Another House Democrat, Rep. Justin Fleming of Dauphin County, said he was familiar with the Rules room. Senate leaders, he said, see the convenience of meeting in a room next to the main chamber rather than in one of the rooms much farther away.
“It has typically been done for the sake of expediency, but it has also been a great source of frustration,” Fleming said.
He hoped Democratic leaders will find a way to install cameras in the room.
The Center Square reached out to Sen. Jay Costa of Allegheny County and Sen. Vincent Hughes of Philadelphia – the top Senate Democrat and the minority chairman of the Appropriations Committee, respectively – to ask whether cameras would be installed.
In response on Thursday, Democratic spokesperson Savannah Capizzi said in an email “Senate Democrats will live stream all committee meetings and hearings.” She did not respond to a subsequent question about whether the Rules room would continue to be used.
Democrats who control the House have little room to talk about transparency, according to Republican Rep. Charity Krupa of Fayette County.
She recalled times when the party in power in the House has rewritten entire bills via an amendment just before a committee was to expected to vote on the bill itself.
“Is it transparency if what they are sending you gets totally amended, without telling anyone?” Krupa said.
Another Republican, Rep. Barb Gleim of Cumberland County, said she did not believe Senate Republicans have any transparency issue. Nonetheless, Gleim said she could understand the frustration of legislative observers who plan to follow a day’s proceedings but are not told the focus of those proceedings until just before they start.
Flessner, the Republican spokeswoman, said the Senate calendar is public and “the process to vote on bills is very transparent.” Each day, the majority and minority parties meet privately on bills expected to get action, and it is based on those conversations that bills are added to the calendar, advanced, voted upon, amended, or tabled.
The process, she said, is “respectful” to members who have been elected by the public.
The final legislative sessions of the year are scheduled in the Senate for Tuesday and Wednesday. Little of substance in terms of lawmaking is expected to occur.
This article was originally published by The Center Square and is republished under its open-access guidelines.