State Auditor Diana DiZoglio wants to have the authority to audit the affairs of the Massachusetts Legislature, and to that end is pushing a ballot measure that would vest in her office the power to do so.
DiZoglio’s pitch is that an audit of the Legislature would bring needed transparency and accountability to an institution she regards as cloaked in secrecy. On its surface, DiZoglio’s pitch seems to have merit. But the more we investigated this ballot issue, the less we liked it.
That’s because we don’t think that the normal purpose of an audit – which is to examine whether the performance of any given agency meets the requirements of applicable law – fits the unique role and responsibility of the Legislature.
DiZoglio is taking her quest to a referendum after being shut down last fall by Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell, who determined in a 17-page finding that DiZoglio’s office does not have the power to audit the Legislature.
Two examples of recent audits by DiZoglio’s office illustrate a state auditor’s proper role. Last November, her team finished an audit of the Hampden District Attorney’s Office. The audit found that the office had properly followed the law concerning disposition of civil forfeiture fines but concluded that it failed to give its employees required cybersecurity training.
In its March 2023 audit of the Pioneer Valley Transit Authority, the auditor’s office examined whether the PVTA complied with the Americans with Disabilities Act mandate for providing service to disabled riders at levels comparable to persons with disabilities — and found that PVTA was compliant.
In both audits, the task was to investigate whether the agency was living up to specific legal obligations. Neither audit engaged in subjective judgments. The auditor’s job was simply to assess if the agencies had complied with existing law. That’s what auditors do.
The Legislature, on the other hand, is a different animal. The Legislature makes the law. Some will complain that the way the Legislature operates is sausage-making at its worst, but that is a feature not a bug of the legislative process.
We have expressed sympathy with DiZoglio’s wish to address the Legislature’s stubborn secrecy, after her requests for information were shot down early last year by House and Senate leaders.
The bottom line is that the Massachusetts Constitution – consistent with separation of powers principles – gives the Legislature the sole authority to set its own rules of proceedings and protects the “freedom of deliberation, speech and debate” for all legislators.
Legislative leaders take that freedom too far when they routinely retreat into closed meetings, especially this time of year, with days running short on the session. The public would be well served to have an independent governmental entity able to examine whether lawmakers’ promises line up with their practices.
For example, if the Legislature passed a bill granting itself $100 million to build a new annex, the auditor should have the right to examine whether that money was properly spent. Last year, DiZoglio’s office audited the Supreme Judicial Court, but the scope of that was confined to specific issues that did not encroach on core functions of the SJC, such as judicial decision-making.
As written, the ballot question puts no limits on the auditor’s reach.
Given the unique role of the Legislature in setting the law, we think any “performance” audit into the core functions of the Legislature is the wrong medicine. If voters are not happy with the way the Legislature operates, they should vote in new representatives and organize for constructive change.
But arming the state auditor with the power to look under the hood strikes us as fertile ground not for constructive change but for more partisan mudslinging. We urge a “no” vote if DiZoglio’s ballot question goes to voters in this fall.
