Even reform bills shaped in secret

It was clear from a sign on the door, "members and staff," that the public was not welcome.

Not long after, two floors above, the entire 40-member Senate filed into the Senate President's office for a private meeting on ethics legislation.

Even as they spoke of changing the political culture on Beacon Hill, by pursuing legislation designed to restore the public trust, the people's representatives in the House and Senate continued their longstanding tradition of deliberating their most important decisions behind closed doors.

"There should be nothing to hide," said Representative James Miceli, a Wilmington Democrat and a lawmak er for 32 years. "Everything should be open, absolutely, unequivocally, emphatically. There shouldn't be anything that's private about this. We're talking about this new era. Why don't we keep this open?"

After doing little in the five months since the legislative session began, State House leaders have gone into overdrive in recent weeks in an effort to nail down major pieces of legislation before July 1 and prove to the public that they are aggressively trying to reform state laws.

But the frenzy of activity - on issues as significant as a sales tax increase, ethics law changes, and transportation funding - is taking place almost entirely out of public view in the offices of legislative leaders and behind the closed doors of several conference committees.

They are the type of meetings that would be illegal for boards of selectmen and city councils across the state. But because the Legislature is exempt from the state's open meeting and public records laws, they are able to deliberate in private and guard key documents from public scrutiny.

"There are advantages to doing things behind closed doors," said Representative Matthew C. Patrick, a Falmouth Democrat who has never been on a conference committee. "Democracy can be a funny business. It can be an ugly business. But the final product is proof of the process."

Rank-and-file lawmakers currently have little clue about what is going on or what they inevitably will be asked to vote on with little notice in the waning days of the session.

"This is the pace a lot of people like, to be very active and very busy and getting things done, one thing after another," said Representative Brian P. Wallace, a South Boston Democrat.

But ask him - or almost any other lawmaker, for that matter - what is coming up next week, and the answer is the same: "I don't know."

Recent federal indictments of Senator Dianne Wilkerson and former House speaker Salvatore F. DiMasi provided a case study of how business is conducted on Beacon Hill. According to prosecutors, lobbyists were able to place calls and send e-mails to top lawmakers at crucial times. Legislation was actually drafted by lobbyists and sent to the State House by courier for passage.

Top lawmakers say that meeting in private allows for greater candor and that allowing the public to take part in the proceedings would only bog things down.

"They can get their work done faster," Senate President Therese Murray said in a recent interview. "They can get a lot more done quickly. It would be like if we came and sat as you [did your work] and sat around and said, 'Why are you doing that?' or 'Why are you saying that?' "

After a piece of legislation is approved by the House and the Senate, a six-member conference committee is formed, consisting of four Democrats and two Republicans assigned by the House speaker or Senate president.

The conference committee is designed to hammer out differences between the two chambers and to draft legislation for final approval. But determining what has happened in conference committee is virtually impossible.

The first action taken by the conference committee is often a motion to restrict the meetings to legislators and staff members. Lawmakers assigned to the committees treat the deliberations like the Cuban missile crisis, afraid that any peep during the process will brand them a snitch.

Only when disagreements are ironed out does the legislation become public, and then it is often swiftly approved, with little discussion, by the House and Senate. The committee's compromise must be voted on, up or down, with no opportunity for amendment.

On Wednesday, even Governor Deval Patrick did not know there had been an agreement on pension overhaul until several hours before the announcement, when he was given a copy of the proposal and invited to the press conference. Yesterday, the House and Senate approved the compromise without dissent.

Last Friday, the budget conference committee spent 12 hours meeting to discuss the budget, according to Senator Steven C. Panagiotakos, the top conferee from the Senate.

"Well, things are moving along," was all he would offer.

Matt Viser can be reached at maviser@globe.com.