Overview
Legislative services bureaus are generally nonpartisan divisions or agencies established by state legislatures that offer a variety of services, such as bill drafting, research, fiscal analysis, publications, information technology, and legal services, to legislators and legislative committees.108 To determine whether and to what extent legislative services are being equitably provided to all members and staff by a legislative services bureau or equivalent, we reviewed publicly available information regarding the legislative services bureaus or equivalents of the sample states—Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Connecticut, and Oregon. We then compared this information with publicly available information regarding the current and historical methods for providing legislative services by the Massachusetts General Court to its members.
All five of the sample states provide legislative services to their legislators through one or more legislative services bureaus or equivalents:
- Kentucky has an office called the Legislative Research Commission;
- Pennsylvania has an office called the Legislative Reference Bureau;
- Virginia has an office called the Division of Legislative Services;
- Connecticut has an Office of Fiscal Analysis and a Legislative Commissioners’ Office; and
- Oregon has multiple offices, including the Legislative Fiscal Office, the Legislative Policy and Research Office, and the Legislative Revenue Office.
In fact, 49 of 50 US state legislatures have legislative services bureaus or equivalents, including Nebraska, which has a unicameral (single-chamber) legislature.109 Based on our review of all of the US state legislative websites, the Massachusetts General Court is the only state legislature that does not have a legislative services bureau or equivalent.
According to its website, the Kentucky Legislative Research Commission, created in 1948 as a fact-finding and service agency, is composed of two units: a larger nonpartisan staff serving all 138 members of the Kentucky General Assembly under the supervision of the director of the commission, and a smaller partisan staff serving the legislative leadership.110 The Commission provides professional services that support the work of the Kentucky General Assembly, including committee staffing, bill drafting, oversight of the state budget and education reform, review of operations of state agencies and programs, maintenance of a reference library, and production and printing of research reports, educational materials, and a legislative newspaper.111
According to its website, the Pennsylvania Legislative Reference Bureau, established in 1909 and reorganized as a legislative agency in 1923, was created for use by the members of the Pennsylvania General Assembly, the Governor, heads of state agencies, and in certain cases, the citizens of Pennsylvania.112 For more than a century, the Pennsylvania Legislative Reference Bureau has drafted legislation and amendments for members of the General Assembly.113 It also provides advisory legal opinions; creates citations to recognize constituent milestones; compiles, edits, and supplements the Pennsylvania Code, the official publication of state agency regulations and court rules, and the Pennsylvania Bulletin, the weekly publication of the foregoing material; edits and oversees publication of the Laws of Pennsylvania, and edits and issues official publication of the Pennsylvania Consolidated Statutes; compiles, indexes, and updates legislative history for bills and resolutions; and maintains the status of legislative documents.114
According to its website, the Virginia Division of Legislative Services is the legislative branch agency created to provide nonpartisan legal and general research services to members of the Virginia General Assembly and its standing committees.115 The Virginia Division of Legislative Services drafts bills and resolutions at the request of individual legislators, legislative commissions, and executive, judicial, and independent agencies; provides legal and research support and policy analysis to all legislators, standing committees, most permanent legislative commissions, and interim legislative study committees, subcommittees, and commissions; and staffs the Code Commission, which serves as the central repository for all regulations adopted by state agencies, publishes the Virginia Register of Regulations, and coordinates publication of the Code of Virginia and the Virginia Administrative Code.116
According to its website, the Connecticut Office of Fiscal Analysis is a nonpartisan professional office of the Connecticut General Assembly whose primary function is to provide technical support to the Committees on Appropriations and on Finance, Revenue and Bonding, as well as to the other committees and members of the Connecticut General Assembly.117 The Connecticut Legislative Commissioners’ Office is the Connecticut General Assembly’s nonpartisan legal office, serving legislators and other officials by drafting legislation that expresses legislative intent in clear, concise, and constitutionally sound language, providing legal counsel, publishing legislative documents, and carrying out other duties assigned by law.118
According to its website, Oregon has numerous legislative service agencies providing nonpartisan services to the members, committees, and staff of the Oregon Legislative Assembly: the Legislative Fiscal Office, which provides comprehensive research, analysis, and recommendations on the state’s biennial budget, evaluates state expenditures, program administration, and agency organization, assists in developing the Oregon Legislature’s adopted balanced budget, prepares fiscal impact statements on legislative measures, publishes detailed analyses, summary documents, and briefs on budget-related topics, and provides professional staff for various committees, boards, and commissions; the Legislative Policy and Research Office, which provides staff support to legislative committees, responds to research and analysis requests from lawmakers, and supports Oregonians in engaging with lawmakers and in the legislative process by providing language access services and coordinating public engagement and testimony on behalf of legislative committees; and the Legislative Revenue Office, which provides research and analysis on tax policy and school finance issues for legislators, legislative committees, and their staffs, revenue impact statements on legislative measures that affect state or local revenue, and staff for various committees.119
The common denominator of the foregoing legislative service bureaus or equivalents is the provision of nonpartisan and professional legislative services to all members of the respective state legislatures. The Massachusetts General Court previously had a legislative services bureau, the Legislative Research Bureau. Chapter 607 of the Acts of 1954, recognizing the increasing volume and complexity of legislative matters before the Massachusetts General Court, established a Legislative Research Council charged with determining the policies for a legislative research program and creating the Legislative Research Bureau to carry out those policies. The purpose of the Legislative Research Bureau was to serve as a nonpartisan resource for legislators, to provide statistical research and fact-finding in connection with proposed legislation and other matters pertaining to the functions of the Massachusetts General Court, and to aid “in the efficient performance of the legislative process.”120 However, no records of the Legislative Research Bureau immediately appear to exist beyond the 1990s121 and there appears to have been no inclusion of a line item for the Legislative Research Bureau’s operations budget since the continuation of a prior appropriation in the fiscal year 1993 budget.122 Section 7 of Chapter 165 of the Acts of 2012 repealed the sections of the Massachusetts General Laws pertaining to the Legislative Research Council and the Legislative Research Bureau. Currently, legislative services appear to be provided primarily by the staff of individual legislators’ offices or of specific committees, with occasional assistance from Senate or House Counsel. The level of staffing and professional services available appears to vary significantly among individual members and committees of the Massachusetts General Court.123 In comparison to other states, the absence of a legislative services bureau or equivalent appears to limit the Massachusetts General Court’s ability to provide comprehensive legislative services to all members, potentially adversely impacting individual members’ ability to best represent their constituents.
Authoritative Guidance
Pursuant to Paragraph 8.18(h) of the 2018 Yellow Book, an example of acceptable performance audit criteria includes “benchmarks against which performance is compared, including performance of other entities or sectors.” As such, some best practices emerging from the review of the legislative website homepages of the sample states include the following:
- nonpartisan, professional legislative drafting services (i.e., bill and amendment drafting) provided to all members;
- nonpartisan, professional legislative research services provided to all members; and
- nonpartisan, professional fiscal and budgetary policy review provided to all members.
The Declaration of the Rights of the Inhabitants of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the Massachusetts Constitution states the following in part:
All power residing originally in the people, and being derived from them, the several magistrates and officers of government, vested with authority, whether legislative, executive, or judicial, are their substitutes and agents, and are at all times accountable to them.124
Reason for Issue
The Legislature refused to participate in this audit; therefore, we could not obtain a reason why it does not provide legislative services to all members of the Massachusetts General Court through a legislative services bureau or equivalent.
Recommendation
The Massachusetts General Court should consider reestablishing the once-active Legislative Research Bureau and review the framework of other states to determine best practices to improve its structure and the delivery of legislative services to all members of the Massachusetts General Court and, by extension, the people of the Commonwealth who are represented by the members.
Auditee’s Response
The Massachusetts General Court was given the opportunity and refused to participate in this audit.
Auditor’s Reply
We continue to make ourselves available to the Massachusetts General Court and encourage it to comply with Section 12 of Chapter 11 of the General Laws, to help make government work better.
| Date published: | October 21, 2024 |
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