In Maryland, transparency in government is enshrined in the Open Meetings Act, which requires public bodies like the state legislature and county councils to conduct hearings in the open, provide adequate notice of hearings and make minutes available for inspection. Such “sunshine laws,” first introduced in the late 19th century, were designed to increase public participation in the democratic process and boost government accountability.
But after analyzing testimony patterns from hearings in the Maryland General Assembly, we confirmed a troubling reality: Open meetings fail to democratize participation because legislators are not hearing representative voices from the public.
To understand who participates in legislative hearings, our research team at the University of Maryland’s Saul I. Stern Civic Engagement Lab analyzed 955 testimonies on 194 environmental bills in hundreds of hours of hearings during the 2021 legislative session. That year, because of the pandemic, all hearings were held online. Even with unequal access to broadband and technology, this innovation should have made the hearings more accessible to Maryland residents, bypassing obstacles such as limited public transportation to Annapolis and the significant free time required for in-person testimony. Since then, the General Assembly has allowed people to testify either in person or online.
The results were sobering.