Auditing the Legislature

Please volunteer to help the ballot campaign for State Auditor Diana DiZoglio’s audit of the legislature:

 

We support the 2024 ballot question clarifying that our elected state auditor, Diana DiZoglio, has the authority to audit the Massachusetts legislature. Independent oversight of the legislature’s operations and finances is necessary to make the Massachusetts State House more accountable to the people it is expected to serve.

Checks and balances are a hallmark of a healthy democracy. No branch of government should be completely shrouded from public view. And, indeed, no other branch of government holds itself as unaccountable to the public’s watchdog, the state auditor, as the Massachusetts State House.

The legislature has exempted itself from the Open Meeting Law and the Public Records Law, important safeguards of the public’s right to know what is going on in government. These exemptions make it all the more necessary that the state auditor exercise oversight of the legislature’s expenditures and operations on the public’s behalf. Since the legislature has refused to allow an audit and resists calls for greater accountability and transparency, it falls upon the voters to clarify that the state auditor has the authority to audit the legislature.

A ballot petition to clarify that the state auditor has the authority to audit the legislature passed the hurdle of gathering two rounds of certified signatures from registered voters and has been certified by the Secretary of the Commonwealth to appear on the November 5 general election ballot.

Please volunteer to help the ballot campaign for State Auditor Diana DiZoglio’s audit of the legislature: