THE TELENOVELA that is Auditor Diana DiZoglio versus the Legislature introduced several more twists Thursday, with an attempted détente that does not actually resolve underlying disagreements and a new wedge dividing previously allied lawmakers.

Senators voted to fulfill a narrow request for documents DiZoglio made nearly 17 months ago, saying they feel more comfortable doing so after the auditor agreed to limit the scope of a related lawsuit against the Legislature. Yet the maneuver is not a neat resolution to the all-consuming political drama: Top Senate Democrats insisted the chamber would provide records voluntarily as a gesture of “good government,” while reserving their right to argue that the voter-approved law empowering the auditor to probe the Legislature is unconstitutional.

Democrats expected that all 40 senators would back the idea, but six senators instead opposed it, arguing that the compliance does not go far enough to solve the broader constitutional conundrum.

Further complicating the outlook, top House Democrats criticized the Senate’s resolution, putting the two branches — who for years have set aside their usual institutional rivalry to present a unified front of DiZoglio opposition — at odds on a key topic heading into the busiest stretch of the two-year legislative term.

The biggest questions, it seems, will not be answered until another day.

Thirty-three senators supported a resolution pledging to transmit to DiZoglio’s office four categories of records she sought in a January 6, 2025, letter: recent Senate budgets, recent audits of the Senate, any transactions related to the “balance forward line item” used to float money from one fiscal year to another, and a “listing of all monetary settlement agreements” the Senate reached with current or former employees in a four-year span.

Senate leaders decided against providing any of that information when DiZoglio first sought it or in the nearly year and a half since then. But they said Thursday that recent developments before the Supreme Judicial Court swayed them toward disclosure.

DiZoglio sought to force the Legislature’s compliance with her audit through litigation, and her case got mired in a feud with Attorney General Andrea Campbell about who would represent the auditor and how the matter would unfold. During oral arguments earlier this month, DiZoglio’s hand-picked attorney, Shannon Liss-Riordan, agreed to keep the case focused only on the four points highlighted in the January 2025, letter, not other topics the auditor has publicly or privately said she’d also like to examine.

That development “gave 40 members of the Senate a level of comfort” that the audit has a more defined scope, Sen. Paul Feeney of Foxborough told reporters.

“The environment has now changed,” he said in a press briefing before the vote. “Instead of broad requests and statements and letters and all of that, it has been focused down in court.”

However, the agreement to narrow the field essentially applies only to what will be litigated. DiZoglio has been clear that she has no interest in curtailing her authority or the scope of her work, saying last week that she intends to “go back and ask for additional records.”

As for how the Senate would respond to future audit requests, Sen. Cindy Friedman of Arlington said, “We can’t answer that question right now.”

“We have a court decision. We are responding to that,” she said. “We can’t imagine or predict what the auditor is going to ask for.”

Feeney and Friedman told reporters that the four categories of information targeted by DiZoglio in that January 6, 2025, letter are public, even the list of financial settlements with Senate employees.

The resolution adopted Thursday declares that the Senate would share that information “voluntarily, but does not concede that it may be audited” under the law voters approved in 2024 “without violating the Constitution of the Commonwealth.” It also emphasizes that senators may still object to any future audit or request for additional documents.

Asked if the resolution should be read as the Senate acknowledging the auditor’s constitutional right to audit the Legislature, Friedman replied, “Absolutely not.”

“If people think we’re messing around with the constitutionality issue, I would ask them to look at the federal government right now and look at what’s happening when you allow the rule of law to take second place to somebody’s desires or whims,” she said, invoking President Trump’s bombastic approach in Washington, DC. “I’m not equating that with her, but I’m just saying the constitutionality issue is really, really salient at this particular moment in time.”

All five Republican senators and Democrat Sen. Mark Montigny voted against the resolution. In a speech from the chamber floor, Senate Minority Leader Bruce Tarr said he appreciated the new interest in partial compliance but wanted his colleagues to ask the SJC to weigh the audit law’s constitutionality — something the Senate did earlier this year over a pair of proposed ballot questions targeting the Legislature.

“The failure of this body to request the opinion of the court has led to prolonged months of folks agonizing over the constitutionality of this issue, delay in the transmission of documents, delay in the initiation of an audit that was not requested, but demanded by 72 percent of the voters of the Commonwealth,” Tarr said, referring to the margin by which the 2024 measure empowering the auditor passed.

“Reluctantly, I will not be supporting the resolution, not because I don’t want to see these documents move forward but because there’s a greater issue here and it needs to be addressed,” he added.

For different reasons, Senate Democrats also failed to win over their counterparts in the House. Moments before the vote, House Speaker Ron Mariano wrote an email to all representatives signaling his opposition to the Senate’s approach.

“Following extensive conversations with the Senate about this issue over the past few weeks, House leadership concluded that a resolution would not be the appropriate method of affirming our legislative prerogative as a coequal branch of government — nor would it allow us to address future inquiries or resolve the endless legal disputes that have come to define the audit ballot question,” Mariano wrote.

Instead, he hinted at vague plans for a more comprehensive legislative package that would be inspired by both the audit fight and a ballot question that could go before voters this fall — also backed by DiZoglio — that would subject the Legislature to the state’s public records law. Mariano said the House will work with “leading transparency experts to craft comprehensive legislation that will provide long-term solutions.”

A Mariano spokesperson said the Quincy Democrat intends to bring that bill forward for a vote this session, which has about two months remaining for new major business.

Before the surprise vote in the Senate, DiZoglio had been intending to refile her lawsuit against the House and Senate more clearly tailored to the four areas where she wants to start her probe. It’s not clear if she will still do so, or target only the House in litigation, or take another approach entirely.

DiZoglio criticized the Senate vote, arguing that it amounted to taking a stance that the chamber “will not cooperate” with the law.

“It’s really sad that Senate leadership is so detached from reality that they think anyone believes they’ve suddenly agreed to give me these specific records for any reason other than that the court is about to lay down the law, again, and order them to obey the people’s wishes,” she said.

One thing is clear: there is still no agreement on whether the law voters approved granting her expanded audit powers passes constitutional muster.

“That question on overarching constitutionality may get answered at some point. It may or may not,” Feeney said. “It’s up to whoever brings suit.”