Their job is to, in the most literal sense possible, create public documents that govern. There isn't a world where I see it as a positive that legislators can further bury their actions and communications behind veils of secrecy while the government has the utmost access to our communications.

> I attribute a great deal of the current polarization to the fact that politicians cannot have private conversations.

This really does not make any sense. You seem to be arguing for less polarized discourse, but I cannot see how that is accomplished by hiding discourse. By hiding it, you create little pockets of extremism, not to mention opening up the doors for illegal and traitorous behavior.

Politicians can speak freely right now. What they want to do is further game the system, and I'm not sure how you can interpret these actions as otherwise.

> I'll judge them on the end result

You can already do that, and in Arizona, the end results don't look so good. Arizona, despite having a lot of potential and having beautiful natural landscape, seems to be consistently listed as one of the worst states to live in. Even the mere fact of Arizona being livable in the coming century is debatable due to climate change.