AG mum on ‘constitutional limitations’ of voter control law – Sentinel and Enterprise

BOSTON — Attorney General Andrea Campbell, who warned last year that she would consider how “constitutional limitations” would affect the voter law that gives Auditor Diana DiZoglio express authority to audit the Legislature, said Thursday she wanted to know exactly what information DiZoglio was seeking before making the announcement. restrictions.

Massachusetts residents voted overwhelmingly last week to give DiZoglio the authority to turn his office microscope to the House and Senate. Legislative leaders resisted DiZoglio’s attempts at oversight and continued to cite separation of powers concerns after the ballot measure passed. As House Speaker Ronald Mariano and Senate President Karen Spilka discussed the possibility of repealing or amending Question 1, two groups that often disagree joined forces to tell lawmakers to steer clear of the voter bill.

Amid political maneuvering, Campbell’s legal interpretation of the situation will likely be crucial.

Campbell also said it wasn’t clear that DiZoglio’s 2024 ballot question would completely clear the way for an audit, when he concluded in November 2023 that the auditor’s office “does not currently have the legal authority to conduct an audit of the Legislature without the Legislature’s consent.” calling.

“If the initiative becomes law, we may need to consider whether and to what extent constitutional limitations would affect how the law is implemented,” the attorney general wrote last year about the ballot question, which passed with more than 70 percent support last week. .

Asked Thursday morning what those constitutional limitations are and how they might affect voting law, Campbell said his office was still reviewing the issue. The election law has not yet come into force.

“At the end of the day, of course, the voters have spoken. But first we need to see what the auditor actually wants to audit, and then we’ll go back to our analysis that we presented earlier and have that conversation with the auditor and his team,” Campbell said.

Fifteen days before Election Day, DiZoglio’s taxpayer-funded office released its first attempt to audit the Legislature. House and Senate Democrats declined to participate after DiZoglio’s team asked for information on legislative finances, operations and communications, but the effort resulted in a 77-page report, DiZoglio’s office said.

DiZoglio sent a letter to Mariano and Spilka on Friday to revive the Legislature’s investigation, saying the write-up of the review “will cover all matters that we were unable to fully review in our previous audit due to your refusal to participate in the audit process.” ”

“Our work will begin with a review of your forward balance line item, including a review of high-risk areas such as government contracts and procurement procedures, the use of taxpayer-funded confidentiality agreements, and a review of all relevant fiscal receipts and revenues,” DiZoglio, a former member of both chapters, said in a statement. wrote this last week:

Campbell declined to say Thursday what specific constitutional limitations might affect Question 1, instead citing the 17-page letter he sent to DiZoglio last year explaining his view on current law on government audits.

The AG said Thursday that his 2023 letter to DiZoglio “makes clear that I believe in full transparency, expanding our public records law, a government, and of course people within the government who know what’s going on.”

“At the same time, we must do so within legal and constitutional constraints,” he said, before declining to say whether the passage of Question 1 had changed his thinking.

A pair of watchdog groups who describe themselves as “mostly at opposite ends of the political spectrum” met Thursday to urge legislative leaders to comply with ballot-strengthened oversight.

The right-leaning Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance and the left-leaning Mass Law organizations said they both plan to launch campaigns encouraging Bay Staters to contact state lawmakers and voice vocal support for leaving Question 1 alone.

In a joint statement, the groups noted the “landslide” margin of support for the measure and criticized Mariano and Spilka for their “slow adoption of the ballot question and for discussing potential ‘changes’ on it in closed-door leadership meetings.”

“Since day one, MassFiscal has been eager to work with the state comptroller and her allies to ensure greater transparency and accountability are brought to the broken legislative process,” said MassFiscal spokesman Paul Craney. “We are happy to support efforts to ensure that the will of the voters is no longer ignored by legislative leaders who choose to deny election results and disenfranchise their own voters.”

Scotia Hille, executive director of Act on Mass, added that voters were “absolutely clear last week.”

“This was not a vote that allowed legislative leaders to decide what kind of scrutiny they wanted to be subject to,” Hille said. “That we must now redouble our efforts to ensure the implementation of this widely popular amendment illustrates why oversight is so needed: if our state leaders are willing to publicly ignore the will of voters, what might they be doing behind closed doors? Act on Mass is proud to support efforts to ensure that Question 1 is implemented as voter-approved, without changes.”