DiZoglio claims to have signatures for ballot question to audit Legislature

STATE AUDITOR DIANA DIZOGLIO’S ballot initiative asking voters to weigh in on auditing the Legislature appeared to clear a significant hurdle on Tuesday, when she said the campaign gathered more than the number of signatures required.

DiZoglio is looking to place the initiative, which would mandate audits of state lawmakers, on the 2024 state ballot. Her effort faces a number of hurdles, including the required filing of 74,574 voter signatures with local elections officials this week. The signed petitions are then to be filed with Secretary of State Bill Galvin’s office by the first Wednesday in December.

“Beacon Hill cannot continue its closed-door, opaque operations with so much at stake. I’m so thankful to every single supporter for helping to make this vision a reality,” DiZoglio said in a statement claiming the effort has collected more than 100,000 signatures. 

The Committee for a Transparent Democracy, the organization behind the effort, is chaired by Doug Rubin, a well-known political strategist who helped DiZoglio win the auditor’s seat in 2022. DiZoglio has shifted funds from her campaign finance account, set up for the auditor’s race, into Rubin’s committee, CommonWealth Beacon reported last week.

DiZoglio, a Methuen Democrat who tangled with legislative leaders when she served in the House and Senate, has struck a populist tone in her push for the ballot initiative. Voters expect “transparency, accountability and accessibility regarding how your tax dollars are being spent behind those closed doors,” and the initiative offers a “seat at the table,” she said in a statement Tuesday.

Democratic leaders in the House and Senate have rebuffed DiZoglio’s effort to audit their operations, arguing she lacks the authority to conduct such a review and that it would violate the separation of powers principles of the state constitution. 

But DiZoglio’s campaign has picked up support from both the left and the right, including Our Revolution, the group formed after Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders’ run for president in 2016; the left-wing Act on Mass; the Massachusetts Republican Party, and the conservative Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance. Members of the Democratic State Committee recently also voted to support the legislative audit.

“We expect our elected leaders up on Beacon Hill to be accountable to all working families in this Commonwealth, regardless of our family background, our bank balance and our ZIP code. Thank you so much for your support, Massachusetts, whether you are Democrat, Republican, Green-Rainbow, Libertarian, Workers’ Party, unenrolled,” DiZoglio said in a video message to supporters.

Attorney General Andrea Campbell ruled earlier this month that DiZoglio lacks authority to audit the Legislature, but she has signed off on the language of the ballot of the question, allowing DiZoglio to try to take her case to voters. 

If local officials and Galvin okay the signatures, the initiative heads to the state Legislature in January, when lawmakers can pass it, propose an alternative, or decline to take it up. If lawmakers don’t act by May, the ballot campaign will be tasked with gathering an additional 12,429 signatures on the road to the November ballot.