YOU GET AN AUDIT AND YOU GET AN AUDIT — Diana DiZoglio is locked in a familiar dance.
She’s trying to open the Legislature up to scrutiny. Legislative leaders are trying to stonewall her. Except this time, she’s doing it as the state’s new auditor and not as a rank-and-file lawmaker.
DiZoglio’s former colleagues are questioning her authority to audit them under the state Constitution’s separation of powers clause. And neither chamber has directly responded to the engagement letters she sent last week seeking information on everything from hiring to committee appointments. Instead, Senate President Karen Spilka pushed back on the probe in a statement to reporters.
Thus begins a battle that’s likely to be fought in the press and the courts — of public opinion and, perhaps, of law. After firing her opening salvo last week, DiZoglio has been hitting the media circuit to make her case.
Her latest stop: The Horse Race podcast. Here are excerpts from our interview with DiZoglio, edited for length and clarity:
Do you have the authority to do this audit?
All entities are required to be audited by our office at least once every three years, and we are committed to ensuring that happens by making sure the Legislature becomes part of that list again. It sort of magically just fell off of the list even though it was done previously [in 1922]. … Anybody can decide if they want to resist the opportunity to work alongside our office. … But it certainly is within the power of the office. And it is my hope that the Legislature will comply.
Do you have any tools to make the Legislature comply, or does this possibly just have to go to the courts?
The statute says that the courts are authorized to require the production of documents and testimony that we may need to be able to complete our audits. But it is my hope that legislative leaders will see this as the opportunity that it is — to increase transparency, accountability and equity for those who are seeking nothing more than to have a seat at the table. … Going to the courts should not have to be necessary.
DiZoglio is asking lawmakers for more money to either hire more auditors to help the office stay on track with its three-year auditing cycle, or to switch to a four-year cycle (and hire a smaller number of staff).
Do you have any concerns that pursuing both more funding and an audit of the Legislature might have negative consequences for your budget?
Nothing ventured, nothing gained, right? We are, of course, pursuing opportunities to make it more possible for us to do our jobs efficiently and effectively. And I am very happy that the Healey-Driscoll administration agrees with our office that a four-year cycle makes more sense.
GOOD THURSDAY MORNING, MASSACHUSETTS. Hear DiZoglio talk about the other 70-some audits her office has going — including her new probes into the MBTA and the Massachusetts Convention Center Authority — on this week’s episode, available now on iTunes and Sound Cloud.
TODAY — Gov. Maura Healey and Lt. Gov. Kim Driscoll visit MassCEC’s New Bedford Marine Commerce Terminal at 10:45 a.m. and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute at 1 p.m. Boston Mayor Michelle Wu holds a press conference on the city’s Green New Deal at 10:30 a.m. in Allston and speaks at a Boston Arts Academy Foundation reception at 6 p.m. in Fenway. Rep. Seth Moulton is on WBUR’s “Radio Boston” at 11 a.m.
Tips? Scoops? Birthdays? Email me: [email protected].
— “Mass. sportsbooks report $25.7M in February,” by Christian M. Wade, Daily News of Newburyport: “Massachusetts sportsbooks roped in more than $25.7 million in bets during the first full month of wagering on games, according to state regulators. The Massachusetts Gaming Commission, which regulates the industry, said the three casinos licensed to accept in-person wagers reported $2 million in revenue for sportsbooks after all bets were settled. That translates into about $300,000 in tax revenue for the state, the commission said.”
— “Campbell warns municipalities MBTA zoning law not optional,” by Jennifer Smith, CommonWealth Magazine: “Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Campbell is wading into the MBTA communities dust-up, releasing an advisory Wednesday morning emphasizing that participating in the transit-oriented housing policy is not optional and raising the prospect of legal and financial consequences for cities or towns that decide to buck the policy.”
— “AG’s office posts record number of housing related complaints in 2022,” by Sarah Betancourt, GBH News: “For the first time, housing complaints surpassed those against used car dealers. The office received 918 consumer complaints about rental housing in 2022, and 171 requests for help through their eviction help request form. Many of those complaints involved unsafe or unsanitary conditions in rental units.”
— “Legislation could permanently ban exercise equipment in state prisons,” by Rachael Devaney, Cape Cod Times: “In January, [state Rep. Steven] Xiarhos filed legislation to ensure that any and all exercise equipment accessible to inmates is secured in order to prevent its removal from the gym. The bill also specifies that no inmate in a medium or maximum-security correctional institution will have access to free weights.”
— “Healey retaining Craven as education board chair,” by Michael Jonas, CommonWealth Magazine: “Gov. Maura Healey who vowed last year in her campaign launch to ‘continue with what’s working and fix what’s not,’ has decided the existing leadership of the state education board is working just fine.”
— “Massachusetts will end its COVID-19 emergency status on May 11,” by Katie Lannan, GBH News: “The COVID-19 public health emergency in Massachusetts and the vaccine mandate for more than 40,000 state workers will both end on May 11, Gov. Maura Healey announced Wednesday. … Certain workers will still be subject to vaccine mandates under rules from the state Executive Office of Health and Human Services and the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Healey’s office said.”
As for the roughly 1,000 workers who were fired or quit over the mandate, a Healey spokesperson said her administration will “be discussing reinstatement options” with their unions. Some workers were already offered their jobs back last year.
— “State steps in to extend Mass and Cass Roundhouse program through July,” by Sean Philip Cotter, Boston Herald: “Some services at the old Roundhouse hotel on Mass and Cass now will run through the end of July, the state now says as it looks to allow for a ‘winddown’ rather than the March 31 closure that Boston Medical Center had planned.”
— SUFFOLK SPECIALS: Jamaica Plain resident Celia Segel is launching her campaign for 10th Suffolk state representative today. Segel most recently worked at the Massachusetts Health Policy Commission and was a past political director for NARAL Pro-Choice Massachusetts (now Reproductive Equity Now).
— Boston City Councilor Tania Fernandes Anderson has endorsed John Moran for 9th Suffolk state representative, according to his campaign. Moran serves on Fernandes Anderson’s district advisory council.
— “Two months in, Healey faces a familiar challenge for past governors: an MBTA in disarray,” by Samantha J. Gross, Matt Stout and Taylor Dolven, Boston Globe: “While the new governor says she now owns the T, some advocates believe Healey could be more vocal by forcibly calling out the problems and her plans to address them. She has yet to hire a new general manager at the agency despite declaring in December that she would act in ‘weeks, and not several months,’ nor has she replaced a single member of its board, they note. … ‘I don’t think there is such a thing as a grace period anymore, if there ever was one,’ said Representative William M. Straus, who cochairs the Legislature’s transportation committee.”
— “Maura Healey’s DPU appointments indicate MBTA watchdog change, observers say,” by Gayla Cawley, Boston Herald: “Two observers said the move to appoint commissioners focused on climate and energy rather than transportation signals a larger plan from Gov. Maura Healey to shift MBTA safety oversight from the DPU to a new state agency, pointing to legislation that has already been filed for such a change. But the Healey administration denied this on Wednesday, saying that the governor’s appointments are part of her efforts to create a ‘21st-century DPU, which includes expanded, in-house expertise in transit safety.’”
— “Silicon Valley Bank, Signature Bank, Credit Suisse all donated to Massachusetts Democrats,” by Matthew Medsger, Boston Herald: “The Massachusetts Democratic State Committee received $1,500 from SVB employees in 2022, according to Open Secrets. … Candidate for the MA-4 Congressional District, Alan Khazei, received $7,800 from SVB employees in 2020, according to Open Secrets; former Congressman Joe Kennedy III, now the Special Envoy for Northern Ireland, collected $3,800. That same year they gave U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren $806.”
— “Bipartisan dinner soothes Harris-Warren tensions,” by Amie Parnes and Hanna Trudo, The Hill: “On Tuesday night, [Vice President Kamala] Harris hosted a bipartisan dinner — attended by [Sen. Elizabeth] Warren — for female senators at the U.S. Naval Observatory, something she has done a couple of times, sources said. … The dinner — featuring Harris’s signature cheese puffs and chicken — was partly aimed at quashing the storyline with Warren and putting the skirmish behind them.”
— “New College transfer students invited by like-minded campus,” by Michael Casey, The Associated Press: “A small liberal arts college in Massachusetts is rolling out the welcome mat for students from a Florida school that has been taken over by conservatives picked by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis. Hampshire College in Amherst this month announced that any students in good standing from New College of Florida can transfer there and, with the help of student aid, pay the same amount in tuition they are paying in Florida.”
— “‘A chaotic mess at any turn’: Why Worcester City Council meetings can be a spectacle,” by Sam Turken, GBH News: “There have been times when speakers have cursed out counselors. And when the mayor has threatened to have people arrested for speaking too long during the public comment period. Last year, councilors debated international nuclear weapon disarmament.”
— “Feeling betrayed by the powerful again, sexual assault survivor Chessy Prout is fighting back,” by Jim Puzzanghera, Boston Globe.
— “Island-wide nip ban goes to vote next month,” by Abigail Rosen, MV Times.
— TRAIL MARKERS: Former Vice President Mike Pence speaks to Cheshire County Republicans at 6 p.m. in Keene. Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who also hasn’t ruled out a 2024 presidential bid, has a town hall scheduled at the New Hampshire Institute of Politics on March 27.
Former U.N. ambassador and South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley makes her second swing through New Hampshire as a presidential candidate on March 27-28. In true New England fashion, one of Haley’s stops is a “Lumber and Lobster” event with the New Hampshire Home Builders Association.
TRANSITIONS — Harvard’s Simon Levien and UMass Amherst’s Saliha Bayrak and John Underhill have been selected for the 2023 class of the POLITICO Journalism Institute.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY — to Boston Globe alum and Philadelphia Inquirer digital editor Felicia Gans Sobey, Mark Eurich, Bobby Deren and Mary Deren.
REWIND — I joined WBZ NewsRadio’s “NightSide with Dan Rea” to chat about journalism and politics.
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