Will Brownsberger — State Senator, Democrat, 2d Suffolk and Middlesex District

In an address to the Boston Chamber of Commerce yesterday, Speaker DeLeo covered a number of important areas, making a commitment to move on municipal health care reform and a commitment to control legislative recommendations on jobs.

The first substantive roll call of the new legislative session was to adopt a transparency amendment to the house rules. I had been working hard on the changes for over a year and I was grateful for the unanimous support of the leadership team and my colleagues on Thursday.

Reformers should be seeking to clean up arrangements that make weak agencies directly beholden to the legislature. The Turnpike Authority was one example. We’ve abolished it, but there are others that come to mind.

it is interesting to read previous posts…. it does seem that MA state government has always had shameless patronage. When incompetent or even dangerous people are given jobs that endanger public safety a line has been crossed. Has that woman who provided information to criminal boyfriends been fired as yet?

The question we will face over the next few months is: would the public be better served if legislators did not engage in job recommendations at all or did so only subject to limitations?

Will, It is time to clean house. The report on the Probation Department released this week by Independent Counsel Paul F.Ware, together with the Globe Spotlight Team’s report on Rep. Thomas Petrolati published in October and the Globe’s earlier report on Probation Department Commisioner John O’Brien paint a depressingly familiar picture of how business is [...]