The state auditor should have the authority to audit the Legislature
In the tempest of today’s political polarization teapot, imagine finding an issue on which Democratic activists, Republican Party officials and donors, and even your most recent electoral opponent agree. State Auditor Diana DiZoglio has pulled it off with her crusade to audit the Massachusetts Legislature, a measure which will most likely go before voters in November.
There’s a reason why DiZoglio’s efforts have garnered such broad support: The Legislature has repeatedly failed in its constitutional duty to be accountable to the people “at all times” by exempting itself from the Commonwealth’s public records and open meeting laws. That’s not the way it works in the vast majority of states — not even other oneparty states.
We have no effective way to determine if the Legislature is acting in the public’s interest or in its members’ own interests. Most states require policy makers to file financial disclosure forms that any member of the public can easily inspect. In Massachusetts, individuals must show proof of identity to the State Ethics Commission to access the disclosures, and the legislator in question is informed of who is making the request. Once obtained, Statements of Financial Interest offer little insight. The forms haven’t substantially changed since the law went into effect in 1978. The highest category to report on the value of real estate holdings, for example, is “$100,000+.” Updating the reporting categories requires legislation.
Bills impacting the Bay State’s 7 million residents are largely crafted behind closed doors, then go to committees, where much of the real work shaping and revising the bills also takes place away from the public. Committee votes on whether to advance bills are rarely made public, shielding members from public scrutiny. The state constitution declares that it is the right of the people to “give instructions to their representatives.” But how can we do so when we don’t know what our representatives are doing — or not doing? An audit is the perfect way to find out.
Senate President Karen Spilka and House Speaker Ronald Mariano oppose the auditor’s push for transparency. Mariano calls a state audit “wholly unnecessary.” Spilka claims that, under the Massachusetts Constitution, it’s up to the Senate to set its rules. But the Senate hires an audit firm to review its books, then can choose to lean on its exemption from the public records law to limit public access to what they find. Though sparse in subject matter, Senate audits are posted online. While the House doesn’t post its audits online, its rules say audits are available upon request.
The Senate urged Attorney General Andrea Campbell to reject DiZoglio’s petition for a statewide referendum, claiming it should have been filed as a proposed constitutional amendment rather than a state law. Constitutional amendments require legislative approval to move forward. Campbell responded to the Senate’s three-page letter by approving the language contained in DiZoglio’s initiative while also warning her in a 17-page letter of her own that if approved by voters, the measure may not pass constitutional muster.
With the nation’s fifth-highest base legislative salaries and an annual payroll of over $65 million, our Legislature ranks at the bottom of the pack in efficiency and near the bottom in transparency. Isn’t that alone cause for concern?
The public appears to be solidly behind DiZoglio. An October UMass Amherst/WCVB poll found that 67 percent of those surveyed would support a ballot initiative allowing her to audit the Legislature, with only 7 percent opposed.
That broad political support may be why the Democratic State Committee; Republican Party state chair Amy Carnevale; and noteworthy Republicans like Ernie Boch Jr. and former Republican Party state party chair Jennifer Nassour back the effort to subject the Legislature to an audit. Add Anthony Amore, DiZoglio’s opponent in the 2022 auditor’s race, to her list of allies on the issue. The idea that the Legislature could be trusted to audit itself, he told the Globe, deserves “a cringe and an eye roll.”
The ballot initiative is well on its way to the voters. A group aligned with DiZoglio announced that it has collected more than 100,000 voter signatures, many more than the state requirement of 74,574 certified signatures. The measure was sent to the Legislature where it can be passed outright, substituted, or ignored. If the Legislature takes no action before the first Wednesday in May, DiZoglio and her team must collect more than 12,000 additional signatures for it to appear on the ballot.
There is ample precedent for such a measure. The Office of the State Auditor has found documentation of audits conducted in 1922, 1952, and 1992. The office also conducted audits of the Commonwealth’s Legislative Research Council between 1972 and 1989.
If DiZoglio’s ballot initiative is what it takes to finally bring sunshine to Beacon Hill, then the public should support it.