Mark Herz: This is GBH’s Morning Edition. I’m Mark Herz. The ballot initiative allowing audits of the state legislature passed resoundingly last week. Question 1 got almost 72% of the vote. But there has been a question of how effective the measure will be in allowing the state auditor to do exactly that. Joining us now to discuss the results is GBH Statehouse reporter Katie Lannan. Good morning, Katie.
Katie Lannan: Hey, Mark, Good morning.
Herz: Thanks for coming in. So what happened over the past week since voters approved the audit ballot question?
Lannan: So since this looked on Tuesday night, election night, like it was going to pass, Auditor Diana DiZoglio planned pretty much to get started Wednesday morning last week by meeting with her general counsel and figuring out where to go from here. So, so far, she has sent a letter to the House speaker and Senate president informing them that she does plan to follow through on her audit plans, requesting to meet with them. We don’t know yet if or when that meeting will happen. The speaker and Senate president have said they’re going to consider their next steps. They haven’t telegraphed exactly what their next steps will be. They talk about kind of respecting the will of the voters, but in a way that aligns with the state constitution. They’ve been raising constitutional concerns really this whole time, the months that this audit discussion has been playing out.
Herz: So that sounds like there’s some resistance there still lingering, is that right?
Lannan: Yeah, we don’t know exactly what they’ll end up doing. They do have plenty of options, including: They could rewrite or repeal the ballot law. They could drag their feet and take a long time responding. They could fully stonewall. They also have control over the auditor’s budget, so they’ll have lots of options for where they ultimately go from here.
Herz: Okay. Okay. It sounds like a bit of a battle still. Well, what might an audit of the legislature look like?
Lannan: So last month to kind of telegraph what she was looking at, DiZoglio published an audit of the documents she was able to access from the House and Senate and outlined in that the things she still wanted to look at but couldn’t. That includes how much the legislature considers bills that are sponsored by a majority of lawmakers, how they apply their policies and procedures, staff, whether they follow their own rules around nondisclosure agreements. That nondisclosure agreements piece could prove interesting. She flagged that again in the letter she sent to the speaker and the Senate president last week. And that’s been a an issue DiZoglio has been concerned about since she served in the House and Senate herself. She signed an NDA as a legislative aide to get severance pay. So that’s really been a sticking point for her.
Herz: Yeah, it’s really personal for her. I mean, it’s been a bit of a crusade, this whole issue. You know, I’m wondering what happens if lawmakers do continue to push back, as you mentioned. And here’s state auditor Diana DiZoglio on that right now.
Diana DiZoglio: I’ve been asking to go to court for a year and a half now, and I’ve been denied access to the courts and I’m happy to have this matter adjudicated in the place that these matters are supposed to be adjudicated in.
Lannan: Yeah, that’s a reference to last year when she sought the state attorney general’s backing in suing the legislature potentially over their refusal to comply with this audit request. Now, the AG did find at the time that the auditor didn’t have the statutory authority to audit the legislature without their consent. Of course, this ballot question, once it makes its way onto the law books — assuming it does as planned — that will give her the authority and that changes the dynamic there. So we’ll see what happens if this does move to the courts. I think that’s been kind of an expectation this whole time, this year and change that this has been playing out, that ultimately it will be the courts that decide this.
Herz: Wow. And I mean, as a longtime statehouse reporter, I mean, do you have any suspicions, Katie, on what might be possibly lurking that the state auditor could find?
Lannan: You know, I think one of the things that we hear is that it’s a transparency question. The legislature is not subject to the public records law, the open meeting law. And we know that. We know that a lot of their work is done behind closed doors. That’s not a surprise. But it is something that the auditor is really looking to fully document here.
Herz: Okay. Statehouse reporter Katie Lannan, thank you so much.
Lannan: Thank you.
Herz: You're listening to GBH.
Massachusetts voters delivered state Auditor Diana DiZoglio a decisive victory in her push to probe the state Legislature and its operations. What happens next is less clear.
A ballot question officially granting DiZoglio the power to audit the Legislature passed last week with almost 72% of the vote. For more than a year, top lawmakers have resisted the Methuen Democrat’s attempts to review and report on their activities, citing the separation of powers between different branches of government.
With the electorate now in her corner, DiZoglio sent a letter last Friday to House Speaker Ron Mariano and Senate President Karen Spilka informing them of her plans to conduct an audit.
Spilka and Mariano have not laid out specifics of how they intend to respond, but said in a joint statement on election night that they 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.”
What an audit could look like
In her letter, DiZoglio said her office’s work will “start with a review of high-risk areas, such as state contracting and procurement procedures, the use of taxpayer-funded nondisclosure agreements, and a review of your balance forward line item — including a review of all relevant financial receipts and information.”
DiZoglio has already published a performance audit of the Legislature, based on documents her office was able to access without the House and Senate’s cooperation.
She told GBH News her plan moving forward is to start by focusing on “all of the different areas that we were unable to audit because of the Legislature’s refusal.”
Some of those areas, according to the October audit report, include whether the Legislature “is ensuring an equitable mode of making laws,” how much consideration is given to bills backed by a majority of lawmakers, whether policies and procedures are applied equitably to all lawmakers and staff, and how the House and Senate comply with their own rules around nondisclosure agreements.
“We would seek to go back to the audit that we released and simply finish that audit and fill in the missing pieces,” DiZoglio said.
The Legislature’s options
DiZoglio wants to meet with House and Senate leaders this month for an “entrance conference” regarding the audit. No date for such a meeting had been set as of Tuesday morning.
A pre-election report from the Center for State Policy Analysis at Tufts University found that lawmakers “have a lot of leverage to resist investigations.”
“They might drag their feet, refuse to comply, or use their budgetary power to handcuff or even defund the auditor’s office,” wrote Evan Horowitz, the center’s executive director.
Precedent exists for repealing or rewriting state laws passed at the ballot. In 2016, after 54% of voters agreed the state should legalize and regulate the adult use of marijuana, lawmakers swiftly passed a measure delaying the opening of retail pot shops — then spent the next several months working to overhaul the voter law.
Ultimately, if lawmakers push back or don’t comply, the matter could end up decided in court.
That’s not a new possibility — DiZoglio last year sought Attorney General Andrea Campbell’s support in potentially suing the Legislature over its refusal to comply, but Campbell found the auditor’s office did not have the statutory authority to audit the House and Senate without their consent.
Now, voters have signed off on writing DiZoglio’s authority to audit the Legislature into the law books.
“I’ve been asking to go to court for a year and a half now, and I’ve been denied access to the courts,” DiZoglio said. “And I’m happy to have this matter adjudicated in the place that these matters are supposed to be adjudicated in.”
