In democratic government, legislative assemblies exercise content-independent political authority. As per the argument developed in the previous chapter, their resort to secrecy can be authoritative provided certain limiting conditions are satisfied. Rather than rehearsing the argument to that effect, this chapter contributes to the reflections on the conditions that make the assembly’s authority to resort to secrecy take normative effect. It proposes that this is the case when its resort to secrecy is functionally necessary to preserve the legislative capacity to act. The impact of publicity on legislative voting has received no systematic attention in the discussion of secrecy and transparency in democratic governance. To make laws and policies, legislators have to resolve their disagreements and negotiate compromises. It has been recognized that the format of deliberative settings – their open- or closed-door character – makes representatives adopt different stances toward the policy issues at hand and, thus, is an important factor determining the outcome of legislative deliberation.