Welcome to MassWatch – a dedicated space that promotes citizen engagement in state and local government. As the late Justice Louis Brandeis said, “the most important political office is that of the private citizen.”

At Pioneer Institute, we promote government transparency. Public access to public information. Without that, maintaining a healthy democracy is impossible. A well-functioning representative democracy relies on citizen engagement. In fact, the Massachusetts State Constitution requires that legislators “at all times” be accountable to the public and that the people have the right to “instruct” their legislators.

That’s why we have created a suite of free websites that allow the public to access to vast amounts of information on state and local governments. Each of these tools features user-friendly queries to help you to navigate the information you want.