State Auditor Diana DiZoglio’s 14-month fight to force the Legislature to heed the will of the voters and throw open its books has turned into one of state politics’ longest-running reality shows.
On one level, it’s a lot of fun watching the Methuen pol throw elbows at Democratic chieftains in the Legislature who probably dearly wish she’d do nothing more than just go away.
But is this eternal gridlock good public policy? And does anyone who lives outside the I-495 corridor really care? That’s a little harder to unravel.
Let’s start with the facts of the case.
In November 2024, nearly 72% of Massachusetts voters approved a statewide ballot question authorizing DiZoglio, a onetime legislative staffer and former Democratic state lawmaker, to audit her former Beacon Hill colleagues.
Days later, the majority-Democrat House tried to pull an end-around, approving language giving DiZoglio the power to appoint an independent auditor to review the chamber’s books. DiZoglio balked, arguing that it undid the will of the voters.
In the months since, there’s been a riot of finger-pointing and no shortage of rhetorical broadsides. Legislative leaders are adamant that there’s a separation-of-powers issue, and they’ve angrily asserted that DiZoglio doesn’t have the power to audit them — no matter what the voters said.
“The issue that we have is that we don’t want a political audit, we want a financial audit,” state House Speaker Ronald J. Mariano, D-3rd Norfolk, grumbled to WBZ-TV in Boston last year. “And she’s turned this into a political audit for some issues she’s been railing against since she first got into the House.”
And after DiZoglio compared legislative leaders to monarchs, Senate President Karen E. Spilka, D-Middlesex/Norfolk, told WCVB-TV in Boston she found the comments “unfortunate,” and mused that DiZoglio had forgotten what it was like serving in the Senate.
Betwixt and between, there was one meeting between DiZoglio’s senior staff and lawmakers that went from merely icy to downright testy in record time.
DiZoglio and state Attorney General Andrea J. Campbell also have exchanged jabs over DiZoglio’s efforts to get her to enforce the law. They’ve remained at loggerheads on both procedural and material questions.
And there are now tensions between DiZoglio and the very state courts that could be called upon to finally settle the spat after two top judicial officials said that, as an independent branch of government, DiZoglio lacks the authority to audit them as well.
That matters because earlier this week, DiZoglio filed suit in the Supreme Judicial Court to try to force the Legislature to open its books. She also asked the high court to appoint a special assistant attorney general to represent her in the case, citing Campbell’s resistance.
If that all seems like a lot, that’s because it is.
Keeping track of the latest in the DiZoglioverse feels like being a fan of one of those intricately plotted Marvel TV shows. If you miss one of them, you won’t know what’s going on in the rest of them.
Which brings us back to the question of whether all of this amounts to good public policy. As noted above, that remains stubbornly difficult to unravel.
You’d think, for instance, that this ongoing standoff would damage public trust in a Legislature that’s not exactly famed for its transparency.
If you ask voters, they’ll tell you they generally favor transparency and accountability and that they want change. And there is even some polling to support that very noble contention.
Last October, pollsters at UMass Amherst found that Bay State residents narrowly believed the state was on the wrong track, 43%-40%.
Even so, a majority of respondents to that same poll (51%-34%) said they approved of the job the 200-member Legislature was doing. Fifteen percent were undecided.
That suggests that, with concerns about the economy, immigration and other Big Questions in Washington, taking center stage, what was initially a populist uprising has turned into yet another Beacon Hill insider’s game.
That feels reinforced by the fact that the audit debate has gotten increasingly partisan, with Republican candidates for governor and U.S. Senate — rightfully sensing an opportunity to pummel Democrats — jumping on board.
GOP gubernatorial hopeful Mike Minogue, a former medical device executive, has offered to foot the bill for DiZoglio’s legal team. GOP hopeful Mike Kennealy took to Facebook (already friendly turf) this week to call for the audit.
GOP U.S. Senate candidate John Deaton, joined by a group of Massachusetts residents, also filed a lawsuit with the Supreme Judicial Court seeking to force lawmakers to open their books.
“As someone who grew up among and still fights for working families, parents and vulnerable residents, an audit would ensure taxpayer dollars actually reach the people who need them most,” Deaton, an attorney, said in an email.
Speaking to reporters earlier this week, DiZoglio called the current situation “completely bonkers.”
She’s not wrong. The endgame is far from clear. And things will just get muddier as Election Day draws nearer. The fall ballot is likely to include a DiZoglio-backed question that would make the Legislature and Governor’s Office subject to the state’s open records law.
“Seventy-two percent of the general public said they want transparency and accountability,” DiZoglio said this week. “What’s happening is contradictory to what the people of Massachusetts have made clear they want out of their state government.”
And yet, weirdly on-brand for this stubbornly contradictory state.
