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Above, House Speaker Ron Mariano and Senate President Karen Spilka, are now firing back at Diana DiZoglio, claiming she herself is neglecting her statutory duties...
Auditor Diana DiZoglio on Monday escalated her long fight with the Legislature, publishing a report slamming lawmakers for a lack of transparency that the top House Democrat derided as "pure political self-promotion and electioneering."
Fifteen days before polls close on Question 1 empowering the auditor to audit the House and Senate, where her efforts have met resistance, DiZoglio's taxpayer-funded office issued a 77-page account of its attempts to subject the Legislature to a "performance audit."
Auditors set out to answer a series of questions about legislative finances, operations and communications, but DiZoglio's office said House and Senate Democrats refused to participate, preventing investigators from reaching conclusions in several areas.
DiZoglio, who clashed with legislative leaders during her tenures in both chambers, called it "deeply concerning that legislative leaders have refused to cooperate with our office to help promote transparency and identify ways to improve service to the people of Massachusetts."
"Transparency and accountability are cornerstones of our democracy and enable the people to participate in government as intended in our Constitution, in a system of checks and balances. It is beyond past time that we return to the historical practice of this office auditing the Legislature, as has been the case for the vast majority of the history of this office," the Methuen Democrat said in a statement alongside the report. "If there is nothing to hide, open up the doors and let the sunshine in. Sunlight is, after all, the best disinfectant."
Both House Speaker Ron Mariano and Senate President Karen Spilka fired back, renewing arguments that DiZoglio's office lacks the authority to forcefully audit the Legislature without violating the constitutional separation of powers.
"The purported audit of the Legislature released by the Auditor today confirms only one thing: the Auditor has abandoned all pretext of faithfully performing her statutory responsibilities in favor of using her office for pure political self-promotion and electioneering," Mariano said in a statement. "The Auditor should instead be focusing on her statutorily mandated reviews, as she continues to underperform her predecessors in the completion of that important work."
Spilka added, "The auditor is singularly focused on the upcoming election and promoting her ballot question, while the legislature has been busy doing the people's business: passing legislation to provide residents the largest tax cuts in more than a generation, increase access to housing, provide free community college for everyone, decrease the pay equity gap, create a safer Commonwealth through gun safety reform, provide greater access to educational opportunities for our youngest learners, and confront the climate crisis."
"With due respect to the auditor, we'll keep our focus there," Spilka said. "As previously stated, the Senate is required to manage its own business and set its own rules under the Massachusetts Constitution and as the separation of powers clause dictates. As required by those rules, the Senate undergoes an audit every fiscal year by an independent certified public accounting firm experienced in auditing governmental entities and provides that audit to the public. Further, Senate business is made public through journals, calendars and recordings of each session, while payroll and other financial information is publicly available on the Comptroller's website."
The new report from DiZoglio's office made findings in only three of eight original areas of focus: publication of annual financial audits into the Legislature, information about pending and enacted bills available on the Legislature's website, and the lack of a "legislative services" office to support lawmakers.
Auditor DiZoglio's report about "performance audit" of Legislature
DiZoglio's office said that because legislative leaders would not provide documents and interviews, investigators could not gather enough information to reach firm conclusions on five other topics, including how often bills cosponsored by a majority of lawmakers actually move and the Legislature's use of non-disclosure agreements.
The audit covered the period from Jan. 1, 2021 through Dec. 31, 2022, close to the entirety of a two-year lawmaking session.
Auditors said the House and Senate did not ensure independent financial audits of their operations were completed for fiscal years 2021 and 2022. They also said the Senate only posted its fiscal 2021 audit online -- but still refused to file it with DiZoglio's office -- after the auditor's team pointed out it was missing.
The report also said the Legislature's website has less information available and is harder to navigate than some other states when it comes to pending and enacted legislation, making it more difficult for residents to understand noteworthy proposals on the move.
Another area auditors found lacking is services available to lawmakers. DiZoglio's office said Massachusetts is the only state in the country that does not have a nonpartisan legislative services agency to assist with bill drafting, research, fiscal analysis and other tasks.
The Bay State once had a Legislative Research Bureau, auditors said, but the report said no records of that office exist beyond the 1990s and a 2012 state law repealed relevant statutes.
DiZoglio's latest report provides more ammunition for the intense debate over scrutinizing the Legislature.
After stints in the House and Senate that saw her vocally disagree with top Democrats, DiZoglio ran for auditor and made auditing the Legislature a central campaign promise.
House and Senate Democrats refused to comply, arguing that the auditor's office does not have power to subject the Legislature to a review without its consent. Attorney General Andrea Campbell sided with legislative leaders, saying the section of state law outlining departments subject to the auditor's scrutiny does not include the Legislature.
DiZoglio and her allies from across the political spectrum -- many of whom are frustrated with the regularly opaque and top-down business under the golden dome -- are now pushing a ballot question that would explicitly add the Legislature to that list.
Lawmakers continue to argue that the proposal would violate the constitutional separation of powers, but no one is mustering an organized opposition campaign. Some academics have suggested the measure will wind up in court if voters approve it.
