A variety of authorized and authorities specialists advised Massachusetts senators that State Auditor Diana DiZoglio’s try to analyze the Legislature is unconstitutional, violates separation of energy rules, and may very well be weaponized in opposition to lawmakers who run afoul of an elected official.
4 state legislators main a committee tasked with responding to DiZoglio’s audit try heard from legislation professors and auditing professionals they hand-selected to testify Wednesday morning. And the group of senators continued to specific long-held skepticism in direction of DiZoglio’s effort to audit the Legislature within the wake of a profitable poll query final 12 months.
New England Regulation Boston Professor Lawrence Friedman, an knowledgeable within the Massachusetts structure, stated the recognition of the poll query that granted DiZoglio’s workplace the authority to audit the Legislature “has no bearing on its constitutionality.”
“Chapter 250 of the Acts of 2024 violates the Massachusetts Constitution. It runs afoul of the constitutional provisions authorizing each house of the General Court to set its own rules and undermines basic separation of powers principles,” Friedman stated, referring to the portion of state legislation that comprises the language of the poll query.
Lawrence Friedman, who’s of no relation to Sen. Cindy Friedman, was not alone in his perception that the legislative audit legislation, which handed with practically 72% of the vote through the November 2024 election, violated the state structure.
College of Massachusetts Amherst Political Science Professor Ray La Raja, who additionally co-directs the establishment’s polling arm, stated the ability granted to DiZoglio by the poll query “threatens a core principle of constitutional democracy.”
“Massachusetts voters have been asked to decide whether the state auditor, a member of the executive branch, should be authorized to audit the Legislature without its consent,” he stated. “Now, on the surface, this might sound like a simple move towards transparency, but beneath the surface, question one threatens one of the foundational principles of American constitutional government — separation of powers.”
The listening to, led by Sen. Cindy Friedman, an Arlington Democrat and prime lieutenant to Senate President Karen Spilka, was the most recent chapter within the contentious battle between the Legislature and DiZoglio, a former state lawmaker who repeatedly battled with leaders in each chambers.
The assembly got here months after DiZoglio started her second try and audit the 2 chambers, as she remains to be attempting to influence Legal professional Common Andrea Campbell to greenlight authorized motion, and after the Herald printed a collection of types wherein DiZoglio admitted she had conflicts of curiosity with the Legislature.
DiZoglio declined an invite to attend the listening to.
In a press release to the Herald, she stated she was set to be “maligned — yet again — by senators who are blocking our access to basic financial and contracting records.”
“We will in no way participate in the Senate’s unconstitutional show trial, purported to be a hearing. Senators are not judges, and their actions in deciding whether or not they have to follow the law — by holding a kangaroo court on this matter — blatantly violates the Constitution, which states that the power to interpret the law rests with the Judiciary — not with the Legislature,” the Methuen Democrat stated.
Sen. Cindy Friedman stated lawmakers who held the listening to “are not a court.”
“We are doing what the Legislature does every single day. We have questions. We’ve been charged to do something — come up with a finding or a report. We are holding a hearing. We have asked the auditor to provide people who could support her position or have a different point of view. She chose not to do that and not to engage,” Sen. Cindy Friedman stated.
DiZoglio has stated she desires to evaluation all of the matters that her workplace was unable to “fully review” throughout her first try at investigating the interior workings of the Home and Senate.
The work, DiZoglio stated in a Feb. 28 letter, would begin 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.”
“Neither these audit areas nor the associated requests give rise to separation of powers concerns or any other concerns regarding the Massachusetts Constitution,” DiZoglio wrote within the letter.
La Raja, the UMass professor, stated a legislative audit led by the chief department might “chill internal debate” amongst lawmakers and “prompt self-censorship and discourage dissent against the executive.”
“Legislators may feel that internal communications, draft proposals or strategy discussions can be exposed under the guise of an audit, even if the auditor claims to be reviewing only finances or processes,” La Raja stated. “… It could be used in a political sense. It could be politically weaponized.”
Jeanne Kempthorne, a retired lawyer and mediator who additionally serves on the Coalition to Reform Our Legislature, stated “it is difficult to see” how a report with suggestions from the Workplace of the State Auditor “would limit the power of either the voters or the Legislature.”
Kempthorne stated a legislative audit would hand the general public “more information about how and why the Legislature performs … so dismally on so many measures” and pushed again on considerations round separation of powers.
“The Supreme Judicial Court has stated repeatedly that separation of powers does not require three watertight compartments within the government. Absolute division among the three governmental departments is neither possible nor always desirable,” she stated. “I want to be as concrete as possible. I think you let the ship sail, and then you figure out whether you need to change direction.”
Senators additionally honed in on whether or not conflicts of curiosity might come up for DiZoglio in a legislative audit.
DiZoglio admitted in types signed in 2023, 2024, and 2025 that there are “threats” to her means to impartially audit the Legislature due to her previous work as a Massachusetts lawmaker. The types additionally included a collection of safeguards that her workplace carried out to counteract any points.
However Harriet Richardson — who labored as a efficiency auditor on the federal, state, and native ranges for over three a long time — stated the steps DiZoglio has taken to mitigate conflicts, like limiting her participation in a legislative audit, wouldn’t “sufficiently” get rid of conflicts.
“While the voters have provided the state auditor with the statutory authority to conduct audits of the General Court, she also has a requirement to conduct such audits in compliance with the government auditing standards, and she has several impairments to her independence that limit her ability to meet that statutory requirement,” Richardson stated.
