Not so public public testimony at Maine's legislature

One lesson of the DeCoster bill scandal: there's not enough transparency in regards to the public testimony given before Mainers' elected representatives at the State House.

The only way to obtain written testimony submitted at legislative committee hearings by stakeholders, lobbyists, and other interests is to drive to Augusta, find the responsible clerk, and borrow a manila file long enough to make photocopies. Why, one might ask, are these things not posted online as PDFs, just as their equivalents everywhere from the committees of the City of Portland to those of the United States Congress?

I probe this question in my latest Parallel 44 column in Working Waterfront, available online.