"Broken System" Seen in Legislative Snafus

Auditor Diana DiZoglio addresses lawmakers on Tuesday, March 26, 2024 about a ballot question she is pushing that would give her office the explicit authority to audit the Legislature.

The procrastination, upheaval and disappointment that defined the end to formal lawmaking business last week was "nothing new," according to the former legislator leading a push to subject the House and Senate to new scrutiny.

Auditor Diana DiZoglio, who is backing a ballot question to explicitly empower her office to audit the Legislature, said the chaos of last week's all-night session and uncertainty about how Beacon Hill will pick up the pieces has "further put on display the need for reforms."

"Anyone who saw the way this legislative session ended is likely to come to the same conclusion: the Legislature is not supposed to operate the way it has been operating," DiZoglio said in an interview. "Not only have people been shut out from the process, but even many of their elected representatives are shut out too. That's how broken the system currently is. Decision-making is so concentrated in the hands of the Senate president and the speaker and their two or three loyalists that capable legislators, especially legislators whom they can't control, are being locked out of the process."

The Methuen Democrat, who regularly clashed with legislative leaders during her tenure in the House and Senate, called the status quo "an authoritarian and dictatorial system of governance" that "disallows for any semblance of a democratic process."

Dating back to her time on the campaign trail for the auditor position, DiZoglio has been pushing for her office to audit the House and Senate despite objections from top Democrats that doing so would violate constitutional separation of powers.

She and her allies opted to pursue a ballot question explicitly granting the auditor's office that ability after all of their other attempts failed to gain traction.

DiZoglio told the News Service that she's been getting a lot of questions since last week about whether the Legislature's failure to find accord on most of its to-do list items during a 22-hour final formal session would become part of her ballot question campaign messaging.

"I think what this has done is it has further put on display the need for reforms in our Legislature, for sure, across the board. But I have been talking about this, because this was happening when I was in the state Legislature -- the votes in the middle of the night, not getting things done in a timely fashion, everything being late, leadership controlling everything," DiZoglio said. "These are issues that I've been talking about this entire time. What's happened here is it's just become a lot more salient for folks across Massachusetts to be able to witness and experience as well."

After clashing last week over priorities they deemed urgent and essential, House Speaker Ron Mariano and Senate President Karen Spilka have both said they are open to holding a late-term formal session to approve an economic development bond bill on which they failed to reach agreement, and signaled they think other unfinished business can advance through during informal sessions.

In recent days, there are no signs lawmakers are any closer to deals than they were a week ago, leaving many proposals idling.

Mariano and Spilka, as well as their deputies, argue that DiZoglio's push to audit them would imbalance power on Beacon Hill. They claim DiZoglio is driven by political motives following her time in the House and Senate, when she often publicly criticized legislative leaders.

A legislative committee tasked with reviewing ballot questions recommended lawmakers take no action on the DiZoglio-backed measure -- or any of the other proposals this cycle -- in May.

"In a representative democracy, power rests with the constituents who elect their Representatives and Senators and hold them accountable," the committee wrote in its review of the auditor question. "Rather than achieve its stated goals, the proposed the [sic] Initiative Petition would limit the power of the voters who elect Members of the Legislature by expanding the powers of the Executive Branch; essentially, the Auditor would supplant the people for herself in holding the Legislature accountable."

DiZoglio said Wednesday that an audit run by her office could "provide an additional layer of accountability," but on its own would not be able to prevent a repeat of last week's mishap. Auditors could recommend alternative processes and procedures, or help compare the Massachusetts Legislature to other state legislatures across the country, she said.

The question will be one of five voters decide on Nov. 5.

DiZoglio said she regularly hears messages of support for the proposal. It's not clear if legislative leaders will mount a formal campaign urging their constituents to vote no.