How Budget Week helps us understand the Massachusetts State House
The Massachusetts House of Representatives recently debated amendments to the fiscal year 2023 budget proposal. As anyone who has worked in the building (or who has covered it) knows, it can be an intense time. But it can also be a revealing one for how the building works.
Over 1,500 amendments are proposed, debated, and decided upon in a few days. The amendments came from 154 representatives, with a median of 9 amendments introduced per representative and an average of 7 cosponsors per amendment. You can check out the stats for all the amendments here.
Not only does that mean a huge amount of work that had to be done, but it also is a snapshot of politics on Beacon Hill. Here’s what we can tell from it before we get into the Senate’s debate on its budget.
Cosponsorships as a social network
When legislation for the current session was introduced, we looked at how cosponsorships could be read as a social network.
As we wrote last year:
Politics is, at its heart, about relationships. Since majority support is required to enact laws, legislators must dedicate time to building alliances with colleagues who will support their ideas and -- ultimately -- their bills. Forging connections in a legislative body isn’t just a part of an elected official’s job; it’s a critical function that shapes how the government operates.
For newcomers and outsiders, navigating these invisible relationships can be tricky. One of the steepest parts of the learning curve is knowing who is close to whom, who agrees with what, and how networks of influence are distributed. Without insider info, the task can seem impossible.
Luckily, lawmakers pull back the curtains on these relationships a bit when they sign onto legislation. By cosponsoring a bill, a legislator signals what they support (at least in theory), and with whom they agree.
Cosponsoring on budget amendments is another look at these relationships. With that in mind, let’s look at what they can tell us.
Who received the most cosponsors?
There was a wide variety of how many cosponsors each representative received on their amendments. Rep. Ruth Balser received an average of 31.22 cosponsors on each of her nine amendments; some representatives received none.
This isn’t to say that average cosponsors correlates directly with political capital – it may be that other representatives focused on amendments focused on their own district whereas others focused on statewide issues. But it does indicate perhaps a different approach to the budget process.
Who is connected to whom?
Since representatives cosponsor different numbers of amendments, we can use that as a baseline to compare their relationships to every other representative.
For example, Rep. Frost only cosponsored 1% of all the amendments for the budget. But he signed on to both of Rep. Muradian’s two amendments. This indicates a relationship between the two closer than between Rep. Frost and a generic representative - which makes sense as they’re both Republicans from Worcester County and presumably work together on a number of issues.
We can do this for all representatives, comparing whether or not they cosponsored more of a certain representative’s amendments than they did for the legislature as a whole. Doing so gives us more than 5,900 pairs of primary sponsors / cosponsor.
We wish to stress that this is not a definitive ranking of relationships on Beacon Hill. Just because someone is higher or lower on this list could be due to the types of amendments filed, whether they were local or statewide, or whether people were too busy to cosponsor or reach out.
But as a way of making public information more accessible, and helping people both inside and outside of the building have a better understanding of the networks among them, we have the full rankings of 5,213 pairs where the cosponsor joined the primary sponsor more than their baseline number. We also have the list of which representatives were cosponsored most by other representatives.
The full list and further description is available here to members of the Massachusetts State Legislature office on Legislata. If you’re not a member, it’s free to join and you can request an invite with the form below.
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