It is strange that in this era of government transparency and accountability, nobody on Beacon Hill wants to be transparent or accountable.
Not the House, not the Senate, and now not even the state courts. All are kicking, screaming and stonewalling to keep State Auditor Diana DiZoglio from looking at their books.
And their closed-door stance is defended by Attorney General Andrea Campbell, who bills her office at “The People’s Law Firm,” while refusing to represent the people.
These are the people — 2, 282,333 of them (72%) — who voted in 2024 in favor of a ballot question authorizing DiZoglio to audit the books of the Legislature.
The people spoke, loud and clear.
But Campbell, for one reason or another, has refused to represent DiZoglio in court to force the stubborn Legislature to comply, thereby siding with the politicians over the people.
The Legislature maintains that DiZoglio has no authority to audit it since the Legislature is a separate branch of government that audits itself anyway.
Campbell’s defense of the Legislature over the will of the people has given rise to the suggestion that Campbell change the motto of her office to “The Politician’s Law Firm.”
The Democrat-controlled Legislature rewarded her defiance of the popular vote by boosting her budget by $7 million.
Campbell last week repeated that DiZoglio has not provided her office with enough information to proceed to court to get the Legislature to comply. DiZoglio hotly disputes this.
In an unexpected turn of event, two state courts — the Trial (Superior) Court and the Court of Appeals — last week joined the Legislature in refusing to comply with proposed state audits, something DiZoglio maintains the auditor has conducted for years.
“Our office has audited the judiciary for decades,” DiZoglio said to the State House News Service. Why, she asked, “would the court decide to stop participating in routine audits? What is the public good that could come out of this decision?”
The audits to be conducted were over the accessibility and lawful compliance with the courts’ websites.
Officials of both courts, citing a 2023 letter by Campbell, told DiZoglio that the courts, like the Legislature, were independent branches of government and not under her purview.
The chief justice of the Trial Court is Heidi Brieger and the Chief Justice of the Appeals Court is Amy Lyn Blake.
However, in that ruling which concerned the Legislature and not the courts, Campbell said that while DiZoglio had the authority to audit all departments of the Commonwealth, the Legislature was not a “department,” but an independent body of state government.
Campbell, in a line that Daniel Sullivan, general counsel of the Trial Court, jumped on, was Campbell’s conclusion that the word “department…should in general encompass only executive branch departments” and not the Legislature.
Campbell also said that “settled principles of statutory construction and judicial decisions, cited above, together with prior opinions of this office, all dictate that ‘department’…does not include the Legislature.”
Ergo, by stretching the Campbell ruling, court officials squeezed in the courts, even though Campbell was talking about the Legislature. No matter, loophole lawyers always find a way.
Also, nowhere in that long letter of legal mumbo jumbo is there any mention of the 72% of the people who voted in favor of auditing the Legislature. They would also likely vote in favor of DiZoglio auditing the courts too, if given the opportunity.
Some years ago, 79% of the people voted in favor of a ballot question reducing the size of the Massachusetts House from 240 to 160 members. The people spoke and the politicians listened. Despite many obstacles It was done.
Now, all these years later, the people spoke again. Only this time State House politicians, like Campbell, are fighting against the people and not for them.
It is transparency for thee but not for me.
Veteran political reporter Peter Lucas can be reached at: peter.lucas@bostonherald.com.
