On Election Day, there was little doubt how Massachusetts voters felt about state Auditor Diana DiZoglio’s push to audit her former colleagues in the Legislature.
When the dust cleared on November 5, more than 7 in 10 Bay Staters he said they supported DiZoglio. But it turns out that was just the easy part.
More than a month later, DiZoglio is locked in a fight with the two most powerful Democrats on Beacon Hill as he tries to force lawmakers to open the books.
On the surface, it’s a drama that has it all, one that pits a brash, self-proclaimed underdog against two political titans in a struggle to shine the sun into the darkest corners of an institution working overtime to resist change.
DiZoglio has argued that she is acting as an advocate for taxpayers, who deserve to know if they are getting value for money from the 200-member Legislature. It also argues that the law authorizing the audit went into effect on Dec. 5, 30 days after the election.
Meanwhile, state House Speaker Ronald J. Mariano, D-3rd Norfolk, and state Senate President Karen E. Spilka, D-Middlesex/Norfolk, have pushed back, arguing that the audit push violates constitutional separation of powers, MassLive previously reported.
But are people paying attention now that the votes have been counted and the public has moved on to other concerns? In particular, the second coming of Donald Trump?
Probably not. And the deal is bipartisan.
“I mean, I’m not hearing a lot about it. I think it’s a privileged game and a privileged issue,” Republican analyst Rob Gray said during an appearance on WCVB-TV’s “On the Record” program on sunday
Three of the five questions on the fall ballot won voter approval last month, Gray noted. They included a high-profile and very expensive fight over whether to remove the MCAS exam as a high school graduation requirement.
But now that the fight over DiZoglio’s audit is being waged largely over issues of fine print and legal authority, Gray says he doesn’t think “voters are passionate about it.”
“So, you know, is he right on the subject? Yes. Is this going to be a big political issue that will inspire voters and outrage in the State House? I don’t think so,” he added.
Democratic analyst Mary Anne Marsh saw things the same way.
“What I think the real point here is that Diana DiZoglio loves the media attention because it raises her profile for another office, another day,” Marsh said. “And if she gets to do the audit too, even better. But she’s loving the spotlight right now.”
But according to one veteran observer, there is only one audience that matters. And that’s the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, which is likely to have the last word on the intrapartisan dispute.
DiZoglio’s audit push amounts to a constitutional “fishing expedition,” said Jerold Duquette, a political science professor at Central Connecticut State University who studies Massachusetts politics.
“The end game is that this is not going to stand lock, stock and barrel [Supreme Judicial Court]”, he said. “The hope is that the [court] will do the hard work and determine whether there is anything constitutional that can be preserved.”
DiZoglio and his allies, including business friends Massachusetts Tax Alliancethey maintained their lobbying campaign during a State House press conference last week.
“We are now happy to support efforts to ensure that the will of the voters [is] not ignored by legislative leaders who have preferred to deny the election results and disenfranchise their own voters,” said Paul Craney, a spokesman for the Fiscal Alliance.
In the House, Mariano attempted a final vote on the ballot question as the chamber adopted a rule that would have allowed DiZoglio to choose an outside firm to audit the Democratic-majority chamber.
Last week, the Methuen Democrat said he had not.
“Legislative leaders should have made the decision to reach out to our office before they randomly decided to insert new language into their rules package that actually calls for our office to participate in House rules.” , DiZoglio said, according to the State House News Service. “Because we would have been very clear that this is a clear attempt to undermine the current law that was just voted on, which explicitly requires my office to conduct the audit of the Legislature.”
It’s this kind of turf stuff that will likely be decided by the state’s highest court. And while voters may have been confused, it’s no less important, Duquette said.
“Average voters are not going to mobilize over time after an election to advocate for reform of the process. There is nothing that affects their daily lives,” he said. “The majority of voters who said yes had no idea it was unconstitutional. The idea that it’s a mandate for the auditor to become the transparency police in the Statehouse is wrong and destructive.”