State Auditor Diana DiZoglio says state lawmakers are acting undemocratically by not complying with a ballot question that gave her office authority to audit the Legislature.
On GBH’s Boston Public Radio on Wednesday, DiZoglio went so far as to compare state lawmakers to the Trump administration.
“We talk about authoritarian regimes in D.C. — what about here on Beacon Hill?” she said. “There is an authoritarian regime in the Legislature on Beacon Hill right now.”
The ballot question at the heart of this conflict passed with support from 72% of the state’s voters in November and is now codified in state law. But to this day, the auditor’s efforts to implement it have been stymied by Beacon Hill power holders.
Top state lawmakers have cast doubt on whether the auditor has authority to review or oversee practices in the Legislature under the separation of powers that’s laid out in the state constitution, since the auditor is a member of the state’s executive branch.
Senate President Karen Spilka’s office declined to comment on DiZoglio’s latest remarks. GBH News reached out to Speaker Ron Mariano’s office but did not hear back.
State Attorney General Andrea Campbell has so far refused to represent the auditor in court to enforce the law, saying the scope of the audit isn’t clear. DiZoglio said her office has been “crystal clear” and that they are still seeking access to financial, state contracting and procurement documents.
In July, DiZoglio side-stepped the attorney general and hired the private law firm Donnelly, Conroy & Gelhaar to enforce the law in court. But a spokesperson from the attorney general’s office suggested to GBH News that that suit will be immediately dismissed under state law.
“Massachusetts state law is clear that any lawful litigation brought by state officials or state entities must be authorized by the Attorney General’s Office,” spokesperson Sydney Heiberger wrote in a statement.
“It is a dictatorial style of government. It is not democratic. It is, in fact, anti-democratic,” DiZoglio said. “We’re just trying to get before a court right now, and we can’t even get our constitutional right to get an impartial hearing recognized by the top law enforcement agency of this commonwealth.”
DiZoglio said the Legislature has refused to ask the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court for an opinion on whether a legislative audit by her office would violate the separation of powers.
“The number-one goal of everybody involved in this on Beacon Hill is to keep us out of the courtroom so that we can’t get a decision so that this will linger on forever,” she said.
