Photo: Chaiel Schaffel/WBZ NewsRadio
METHUEN, Mass. (WBZ NewsRadio) – With a tsunami of voters on her side, State Auditor Diana DiZoglio is preparing to give Beacon Hill the political equivalent of a full-body CT scan. But it seems unlikely that state lawmakers are going to lie still for it.
Question 1, giving the auditor the explicit authority to examine the legislature, passed by more than 70% on election night.
“It’s no longer legislative leaders and the Auditor’s Office having a disagreement. This is now a mandate from the people of Massachusetts,” said DiZoglio, speaking from in front of her home in Methuen.
Beacon Hill leaders have long felt that the auditor is overstepping the constitutional authority of her office by trying to see what was beneath the hood of the legislative branch, arguing that to do so would violate the separation of powers.
Where To Go From Here
The width of DiZoglio’s planned audit was up for discussion before the election, with some legal experts saying she would not be allowed to look into elements of the legislature’s “core powers” – like how certain bills are brought up for a vote or tabled.
But DiZoglio says that – among other things – is exactly what she’d be looking to do here.
“We are trying to look at process, procedures. We’re trying to look at the process by which member majority-sponsored bills get considered by the membership,” she said.
DiZoglio is pointing to a sore spot long derided by transparency advocates. Negotiations on important bills are very often done out of the public eye, with committee votes veiled from the public. Massachusetts lawmakers don’t need to comply with public records laws. She says votes on major bills are often done in the middle of the night, without any public participation.
She also wants to look into how the legislature spends money carried over from the budgets of previous years. “There seems to be not a lot of accountability about how those dollars are being spent,” she said.
The Ball Is In The General Court
Beacon Hill leaders have long pushed back the concept of the auditor, based in the state’s executive branch, being able to audit the legislative branch. Backed by a group of political scientists, they contend that an audit would be a breach of the separation of powers, an unconstitutional overreach that has dangerous political ramifications.
In response to the ballot measure passing, Senate President Karen Spilka and House Speaker Ron Mariano issued a statement.
“Consistent with how the Legislature has moved forward with every voter-approved ballot question in the past, we will consider next steps regarding how to best respect the Question 1 election results in a manner that aligns with the fundamental principles of the Massachusetts Constitution, including separation of powers,” it read.
Pushing back on the separation of powers argument, DiZoglio pointed to the fact that Beacon Hill can audit the executive branch through the House and Senate Post Audit and Oversight Committees, which have examined executive branch offices in the past. She argues that her office should be able to do the same to the legislature.
Beacon Hill leaders have a number of ways to respond. They could opt to challenge the ballot question in court and try to get it struck down. But that seemed to be an outside shot to DiZoglio.
“I, more and more, am getting convinced that that’s not the option they want to take,” she said.
More, she considers lawmakers gutting or even completely repealing the law a genuine possibility, even over a colossal landslide at the state level.
DiZoglio On Hill Culture
The auditor is no stranger to the gears that make state law turn. She served in the House and Senate for a combined decade on the Hill as a lawmaker. DiZoglio had scathing remarks for what she sees as the culture under the golden done.
“It’s become, really, an authoritarian regime up on Beacon Hill, in the legislature at least,” she said. “The speaker and senate president, regardless of who has entered those roles, run the institution in a cult-like fashion.”
She said the pressure to follow legislative leadership and repeal Question 1 may prove too much for some lawmakers. DiZoglio called for Massachusetts residents to pepper their state lawmakers with calls and emails to support the will of their voters if it does come to that.
“You either get in line and do what they say, real quick, or you are ignored, you are ostracized, you are bullied,” she said. “That is the way they control the membership.”
“They know that they will, one hundred percent, be retaliated against…It’s also their community that gets punished by legislative leaders….They will literally retaliate against people’s communities in order to prove a point and in order to make sure they get that legislator back in line with their agenda,” she said.
The offices of Leader Mariano and President Spilka did not address the sentiments when asked about them by WBZ NewsRadio.
WBZ’s Chaiel Schaffel (@CschaffelWBZ) reports:
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