Here is Leader Reid on the Senate floor yesterday:
We will do this work transparently, and we will do this work tirelessly. That may mean debating and voting late at night.
A bit later, Leader Reid returned to this argument:
The process for developing this legislation has been very transparent. In fact, the hearings held in the Finance Committee were done very publicly, and that is an understatement. For weeks and weeks, members of that committee couldn’t walk out of the room without being questioned by the press. The press was present at most of their meetings. So both the HELP and Finance Committees marked up their legislation in public markups. Republican and Democratic members of both committees offered numerous amendments, all of which were available to the public. Republican and Democratic members voted for or against those amendments in a public and transparent way, and each committee member can be held fully accountable to their constituents for all of those votes.
The merged bill before us is entirely consistent with the provisions produced in those public markups. The bill has been fully available on the Internet for about 2 weeks. So each and every American has had the opportunity, if they wanted, to read the text of the legislation and to communicate their views with their Senators.
Leader Reid appears to be defining transparency as an open committee process, floor debate, and amendment process. He wrote his substitute amendment, however, behind closed doors with senior Administration officials in a process that was anything but transparent.