Keller @ Large: Why Is The Massachusetts State House Still Closed To The Public?
BOSTON (CBS) - From classrooms at local colleges and schools to games and concerts at the Garden, every major local indoor venue has been letting the vaccinated in for months.
Except the State House. What is the holdup?
The House Speaker says the state's vaccination verification app could be key to reopening to the public. The Senate President says she's down with that and hopes we can get it open this month. But the working groups they've appointed are still…working on it.
And the governor? He says it's up to the House and Senate to get it done.
This hot-potato juggling would be comical if some aspects of the prolonged shutdown weren't so serious.
"There's strong value to the public to be able to physically access the building and lawmakers, and for lawmakers to be physically present during debates and public hearings," says Geoff Foster, executive director of the government watchdog group Common Cause of Massachusetts. "There's really no adequate substitute for it."
Veteran reporter Katie Lannan of the State House News Service, president of the State House Press Association, says that while reporters are permitted inside the building, the shutdown has made their job tougher. "The news that people want to get out will always find a way to get out. If you're trying to uncover things that people are less willing to talk about, that's trickier if you don't have that same kind of access to people in person," she says.
And to Sen. Diana DiZoglio (D-Methuen), who's running for the Democratic nomination for state auditor, there's no excuse for further delay in reopening the capitol.
"We are the only state house in the entire nation that has not reopened its doors safely to those residents that we serve," she says. "People need an opportunity to have their voices heard in the people's house and right now that's not happening."
