Auditor's audit update
It's clear who legislators are loyal to, and it's not voters and taxpayers.
Nobody expected our state legislature, known for its lack of transparency, to agree to an audit by our State Auditor, so it’s a good thing Diana DiZoglio (D-Methuen) collected over 100,000 signatures to get the issue on the ballot so voters can remind our Reps and Senators who they actually work for. She (we) needed all of them as my sources tell me Secretary of State Bill Galvin (D-Boston) did his best to disqualify as many signature sheets as he could.
The legislature now has the option of voting on the matter themselves, which is about as likely as Tony Soprano agreeing to an audit. This was made clear by a legislative panel assembled for reviewing potential ballot questions, which conjured up all manner of excuses and hyperbole to keep voters in the dark.
“I submit that the power to audit may well turn out to be the power to destroy,” testified Northeastern law professor Jeremy Paul, leading Rep. Ken Gordon (D-Bedford) to claim he was worried about “consolidation” of power in a single office. No explanation was given how an audit would do any of these things and in fact DiZoglio, foreseeing these ridiculous claims, arrived to the hearing with a cart full of old books that contained the results of previous audits. She’s playing chess while the panel is playing checkers.
Full disclosure: Gordon, DiZoglio, and I came into the legislature at the same time in 2013. Nobody should expect any kind of friendship to get in the way of legislating laws or performing governmental duties, but it’s clear that Gordon’s loyalty lies with his party’s leadership and not with his constituents.
“Our staff conducts performance audits. Audits.” DiZoglio stated. “The amount of opposition to audits from this body is deeply, deeply disturbing and concerning on so many levels.”
State legislators work for us, we pay their salaries, we have a right to know how they’re performing, or even if they’re showing up for work. Progressive group Act On Mass has done an excellent job covering this and they report that the House has taken fewer than half the number of recorded votes this session to date than in recent sessions.
The trend under current Speaker Ron Mariano (D-Quincy) is to bundle loads of bills into giant consolidated bills hundreds of pages long that nobody gets a chance to read. And why even bother to read them when the Speaker has over three quarters of the House under his thumb? Democrats in the House are going do whatever he tells them to do, which is the real constitutional issue here. Nothing happens in this state unless the Speaker wants it to happen, and nobody outside his district voted for him.
This is how we ended up with the MBTA Communities law being forced on us with high density housing requirements, overriding our own Planning Boards. Buried deep in this law is a description that makes every town in eastern Mass. an “MBTA community” even if it doesn’t have and MBTA station, or even a bus stop.
This kind of abuse is lost on leadership loyalists like Rep. Michael Day (D-Stoneham) who suggests voters can already do something about it. “The transparency debate is one we have every two years at the ballot box. We do that at election time every two years.”
Someone should really take him up on that offer, so anyone who cares about democracy being carried out the way it’s supposed to should pull papers and run. Here’s Day’s district:
The legislature can and should bring the matter to a vote so that voters know where their State Reps and Senators stand on an audit, but that likely won’t happen because that means they’d have to choose who they represent, their voters or their leadership. And leadership holds the key to a bogus title that comes with a giant raise.
The clock is ticking and if they choose to do nothing then we’ll need just 12,000 signatures to get the question on the ballot in November. DiZoglio has an army of supporters from both sides of the aisle ready to help.
Thanks Lenny. Your clear and concise article tells it like it is. So grateful for your insights.