Diana DiZoglio

Ballot questions covering MCAS to psychedelic drugs clear first signature threshold

November 22, 2023 by pkzadmin

Ballot questions covering issues from legislative audits to classifying rideshare drivers as independent contractors cleared a major hurdle Wednesday when organizing groups said they had enough signatures to advance toward potential placement on the 2024 ballot.

Attorney General Andrea Campbell certified 34 ballot questions and proposed constitutional amendments in September, kicking off a roughly three-month race to collect more than 75,000 signatures to hand into local election officials.

An industry-backed group looking to classify rideshare drivers working for companies like Uber and Lyft as independent contractors eligible for some benefits collected enough signatures, a spokesperson said.

“We will have more to say after Thanksgiving but we have plenty of signatures,” a spokesperson for the ballot question campaign told the Herald. “Well over the threshold.”

Another question that would grant drivers for Uber and Lyft the right to unionize also cleared the signature hurdle, according to representatives of the United for Justice ballot initiative committee. Supporters are also pushing lawmakers to pass a related proposal on Beacon Hill.

“The ballot initiative and the related Rideshare Driver Justice bill currently before the Legislature both deal specifically with making sure rideshare industry drivers have the right to collective bargaining, just as the state has granted to home care and childcare workforces who similarly may not report to a single worksite but do the same work everywhere,” United for Justice said in a statement.

After the signatures are turned in to local election officials, they are due to Secretary of State William Galvin’s office by Dec. 6. Galvin certifies the signatures and then passes the questions on to the Legislature, which has an opportunity to pass the proposal, amend it, or take no action.

If lawmakers do not pass the proposal by May, ballot question campaigns need to collect nearly 12,500 more signatures to file with local officials in June and state officials in July to make it onto the 2024 statewide ballot.

A proposal that would grant the state auditor the power to audit the Massachusetts Legislature also cleared the 75,000-signature hurdle Wednesday, handing Auditor Diana DiZoglio a win after a legal effort to force the Legislature to open its books was stymied by Campbell.

DiZolgio said her ballot question committee submitted “the necessary amount of signatures.”

“Our campaign resonates with the people of Massachusetts because they want our leaders to fix the numerous, simultaneous crises our Commonwealth is facing – whether that’s in housing, healthcare, transportation, mental health, addiction or others,” DiZoglio said in a statement. “Beacon Hill cannot continue its closed-door, opaque operations with so much at stake.

Campbell certified the ballot question in September but ruled earlier this month that the Massachusetts state auditor does not have the legal authority to audit the Legislature without consent.

In the education world, the state’s largest teacher’s union said it collected more than 130,000 signatures for a ballot question that would remove the state’s MCAS test as a graduation requirement for high school students.

Massachusetts Teachers Association President Max Page said the number of signatures gathered “underscores a growing discontent with the current educational assessment system and a collective call for change.”

“With over 130,000 signatures, the public’s voice is loud and clear: They stand with educators against high-stakes testing,” Page said in a statement.

Another question that would legalize the use of psychedelics for people 21 and older also cleared the signature threshold but may run into issues after local elections officials found “union bugs printed” on their signature sheets.

“Signatures on sheets with extraneous markings or alterations are disallowed,” a spokesperson for Secretary of State William Galvin said in a statement.

Backers of a ballot question that would allow tipped workers to earn the minimum wage in Massachusetts, $15 an hour, said they gathered over 100,000 signatures ahead of Wednesday’s deadline.

But a proposal that would have repealed the state’s 1994 ban on rent control fizzled out earlier this month, with the ballot question’s main supporter, Rep. Mike Connolly, saying the campaign had only collected 10,175 signatures, well short of the nearly 75,000 needed to advance.

The end of the ballot question push came after Connolly said he faced opposition from the Homes For All Coalition, a group that includes a local union and advocacy groups.

“Leaders of the coalition spoke out against our decision to file the petition and called on elected officials, donors, and local leaders to not support our effort,” Connolly said in a statement. “They maintained that rent control cannot win at the ballot box in 2024, and they publicly demanded that we withdraw our petition.”

Diana DiZoglio burst into song as she pushed legislative audit at Massachusetts Democratic convention

September 23, 2023 by pkzadmin

LOWELL — If there was any question about what State Auditor Diana DiZoglio was going to say during her state Democratic convention speech Saturday, she immediately put to bed speculation when she walked out to the 1980s hit “Walking on Sunshine.”

The song was used as an anthem — outside of her own ballad of transparency — for her campaign to audit the legislature, a push that has met fierce resistance from top lawmakers on Beacon Hill. It is an effort that has taken DiZoglio from the Attorney General’s office to the 2024 ballot question realm.

DiZoglio made clear during her short speech that the “biggest roadblock” she has faced since taking office earlier this year is ensuring “our Democratic values” are represented up on Beacon Hill.

“See, I audit over 200 state entities and the only one that has refused to comply is unfortunately our own state legislature,” DiZoglio, a former state senator from Methuen, said to a crowd that included the very people she wants to audit. “Now, I know this topic makes many Beacon Hill insiders uncomfortable and that’s why I’m coming directly to you, Massachusetts Democrats.”

Top Democrats, including Senate President Karen Spilka and House Speaker Ronald Mariano, contend DiZoglio has neither the legal authority nor constitutional power to audit the Legislature, which is not subject to the public records law and often hashes out the final details of major bills in private.

Mariano has rejected DiZoglio’s claims of legislative auditing authority, arguing it is “entirely without legal support or precedent, as it runs contrary to multiple, explicit provisions of the Massachusetts Constitution.”

“[It] is wholly unnecessary as the public currently has full and ready access to the House’s financial information,” Mariano wrote in a March letter.

Marino believes it is “just really simple and straightforward” that DiZoglio does not have the power to audit the Legislature and that there is a constitutional separation of powers, campaign spokesperson Scott Ferson told the Herald after DiZoglio’s speech.

Spilka has aired similar points, saying in a separate March letter that a “plain reading” of state law makes clear that the Legislature is not among the entities over which the auditor has authority.

“Moreover, the Massachusetts Constitution guarantees that the Senate and House of Representatives have exclusive authority to manage their own business and determine their own internal rules of proceedings,” Spilka wrote.

Spilka did not take questions from reporters at the convention and a spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.

DiZoglio is in the process of seeking legal action against the legislature to force lawmakers to open up their books. But any lawsuit first needs approval from Attorney General Andrea Campbell, who declined to take questions from reporters at the convention.

Campbell has suggested that a lawsuit between two parts of state government is “rare” during an August radio interview.

“I just want to stress that this is rare that you have one part of government wanting to sue another or vice versa depending on how this unfolds,” Campbell said.

DiZoglio said Democrats in Massachusetts have increased access to voting but the access ends once elections are over.

“Should we care so deeply about access to voting for our elected officials but then resign our right to access information about how they voted, how our money is being spent, how process and procedures can allow for 120 legislators to co-sponsor a bill that’s never brought up for a vote, empowering two or three people in positions of power to block its passage?” DiZolgio said before she burst out into song.

Advocacy group Our Revolution Massachusetts said before the convention that they planned to file a resolution that supported DiZolgio’s audit. But it did not see any action — nor did any other resolution filed by state party members — after a series of parliamentary moves culminated in the adjournment of the convention.

Massachusetts Democratic Party Chair Steve Kerrigan said convention rules essentially require a two-third vote to take up resolutions if they are not on the agenda.

“This convention was about taking action but you’re allowed as a delegate to bring a resolution if you wish. There are thresholds within our charter and our convention rules,” Kerrigan told reporters. “… If the eventual agenda for the convention didn’t include resolutions — which this didn’t because it’s an action agenda convention and typically those things don’t happen — then you have to have two thirds to suspend the rules.”

Photo by Reba Saldanha/Boston Herald
Mass Senate President Karen Spilka speaks at the Massachusetts Democratic Convention at the Tsongas Arena Saturday in Lowell. (Photo by Reba Saldanha/Boston Herald)

Ballot questions face first decision day Wednesday with AG approval on the line

September 5, 2023 by pkzadmin

It’s the first major decision day for ballot questions in Massachusetts.

Attorney General Andrea Campbell will make clear Wednesday the initial fate of more than 40 proposed laws and constitutional amendments dealing with everything from rent control to auditing the Legislature.

Ballot question backers filed 42 different initiative petitions in early August which Campbell has spent the past month reviewing to see if they meet constitutional muster. Supporters hope to see their ideas on the ballot during the 2024 elections.

The questions touch on some of the most debated topics on Beacon Hill — removing the MCAS as a condition for high school graduation, election reform, the classification of app-based workers, and allowing for the unionization of transportation network company drivers.

In the weeks since those proposals were submitted, advocates have let loose 55 legal briefs — 32 in favor and 23 in opposition — in an attempt to convince Campbell to either certify or toss aside various questions.

One question would ask voters to repeal the state’s 1994 ban on rent control, an idea that has drawn financial support from an out-of-state advocacy group but opposition from think tanks, real estate associations, a developers group, and landlords, among others.

But state Rep. Mike Connolly, the Cambridge Democrat behind the proposal, said he and other proponents are “feeling very hopeful” ahead of Campbell’s decision.

“We’re here because we’re in an unprecedented housing emergency,” he said Tuesday. “… That’s really the source of our resolve in this matter, is to take every opportunity to address this ongoing, unprecedented emergency that has resulted in unseen homelessness as well as affordable housing being more out of reach to more people than it has ever been in our lifetime.

In a letter opposing the idea, the Fiscal Alliance Foundation argued it violated parts of the state constitution prohibiting ballot questions that create takings of property without just compensation and those that address multiple unrelated policies in the same question.

Connolly and other supporters of the question planned an 11 a.m. press conference Wednesday outside the State House to “react to the attorney general’s certification decisions on potential 2024 ballot questions.”

For the ballot questions that receive the greenlight Wednesday, supporters will likely start a mad dash to collect more than 75,000 signatures that need to be filed with local election officials by Nov. 22 and Secretary of State William Galvin’s office by Dec. 22. After that, the questions head to the Legislature for review.

The finances of the various ballot question committees will not become fully clear until next year, when they are required to disclose their 2023 activity to the Massachusetts Office of Campaign and Political Finance.

One of the state’s largest teacher’s unions is hoping to nix the MCAS graduation requirement and replace it with “locally developed alternatives for certifying academic mastery.” The Massachusetts Teachers Association, which represents more than 115,000 members across the state, is backing the idea.

MTA President Max Page said union members are “very optimistic” about their “strong, clear, completely legitimate ballot question.”

“We are hoping and expecting that the attorney general will certify it [Wednesday] and then we’ll be off to the races,” he told the Herald Tuesday. “We’ve got a big meeting planned this weekend to get this out to all of our locals, and we’ll start gathering signatures.”

Another question awaiting a decision by Campbell and backed by State Auditor Diana DiZoglio would authorize the state auditor’s office to audit the state Legislature, something the former senator has been pursuing since taking office this year.

The proposal would allow the state auditor to take a look at accounts, programs, activities, and functions directly related to the Legislature. DiZoglio asked Campbell earlier this year to approve legal action against the House and Senate in an attempt to force them to open up their books.

Top Democrats have so far refused, arguing the state auditor does not have the legal authority nor the precedent to audit the Legislature. House Speaker Ronald Mariano and Senate President Karen Spilka both authored letters to DiZoglio outlining those points.

Campbell has called the request to pursue legal action “rare” but has so far not tipped her hand on whether she will approve the request. The state’s top prosecutor has also declined to comment on the ballot question until her office has finished reviewing it.

Other questions before Campbell touch on the classification of app-based rideshare and delivery drivers and requiring the full minimum wage for tipped workers with tips on top.

The app-based workers proposal was thrown off the ballot last year by the state’s highest court because justices believed it dealt with too many matters for voters to consider in one question.

A lawsuit against Uber and Lyft filed in 2020 by then-Attorney General Maura Healey is scheduled to go to trial in Suffolk County Superior Court starting in May 2024, according to court records. The lawsuit asks the courts to classify drivers as employees rather than independent contractors.

“We heard loud and clear that the SJC had concerns about relatedness, and we know that trial lawyers and labor will once again try to use legal loopholes to deny voters the chance to weigh in on this important issue,” Conor Yunits, a spokesperson for this year’s ballot question campaign, said in an early-August statement. “We have provided the attorney general’s office with a number of options for certification that should address these concerns and ensure that voters have an opportunity to make their voices heard.”

State auditor’s threat against Massachusetts legislature ‘rare,’ Andrea Campbell says

August 19, 2023 by pkzadmin

Massachusetts Auditor Diana DiZoglio’s request to pursue legal action against the legislature to force them to comply with an audit of their operations is “rare,” Attorney General Andrea Campbell said Friday.

DiZoglio asked Campbell last month for permission to take the House and Senate to court in an effort to get the two branches to open up their finances and divulge details on active and pending legislation, processes for appointing committees, adoption and suspension of rules, and policies and procedures of the Massachusetts General Court.

But it is uncommon for one side of state government to take legal action against another, Campbell said.

“I just want to stress that this is rare that you have one part of government wanting to sue another or vice versa depending on how this unfolds,” Campbell said on GBH’s Boston Public Radio.

DiZoglio is required to seek approval from the attorney general before bringing a lawsuit against any entity, public or private, according to state law. She made her request in a legal memo sent to Campbell late last month.

At a press conference where she escalated her feud with Democratic lawmakers in the Legislature, DiZoglio said she does “not wish to go to court.”

“We have repeatedly offered to have conversations, requested compliance with this audit, requested that the legislature see the value and opportunity in working alongside our office to help increase access for the voters,” the state auditor said.

House Speaker Ronald Mariano and Senate President Karen Spilka have refused to comply with DiZoglio’s audit and rebuffed the state auditor’s claims that she has the legal or constitutional authority to run an oversight check on the two branches.

In a March letter to DiZoglio, Mariano said DiZoglio’s claim of authority to conduct the audit is “entirely without legal support or precedent, as it runs contrary to multiple, explicit provisions of the Massachusetts Constitution, and is wholly unnecessary as the public currently has full and ready access to the House’s financial information.”

Campbell did not tip her hand on whether she is leaning towards approving or rejecting DiZoglio’s request for legal action, only saying the office is “doing our due diligence” and reaching out to all parties involved.

“We are not rushing this process,” Campbell said on the radio. “… When we make that decision, it will be thoughtful and we will be crystal clear as to why we made a decision one way or the other.”

DiZoglio has a backup plan if Campbell does not give her the greenlight.

The state auditor, along with a group of transparency advocates, filed a ballot question that would give her office the authority to conduct an audit of the Legislature. DiZoglio has said she will not use taxpayers dollars on the ballot question push and filed it as a private resident.

Campbell said she believes in transparency but would not comment on the proposed state law until her office has finished reviewing it.

“More to come on that. Obviously it is her power in her other capacity to pursue this,” Campbell said.

Materials from the State House News Service were used in this report.

‘It’s just really dire’: Diana DiZoglio discusses funding shortfalls with Groton, Dunstable officials

August 18, 2023 by pkzadmin

GROTON — State Auditor Diana DiZoglio met with Groton and Dunstable officials Thursday to field concerns mainly regarding the regional school district’s lack of funding.

Accompanied by her office’s Division of Local Mandates and state Rep. Margaret Scarsdale, D-Pepperell, DiZoglio sat down with Select Board members, school leadership and town administration at the Groton Senior Center to share her work and offer a listening ear.

With the visit — part of her office’s AuditTours initiative — DiZoglio intended to connect with community leaders to hear about local issues that may inform future reports.

DiZoglio’s office is currently conducting a performance and safety audit on the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, which will help “make government work better by identifying any gaps in the system,” DiZoglio said. They also recently released an audit on the Executive Office of Elder Affairs that she said detailed the lack of proper reporting around abuse and neglect cases.

In an effort to improve the lives of Massachusetts residents, DiZoglio said this outreach is integral to making change and ensuring the government serves everyone fairly.

“We audit and investigate different areas of state government based on things that we hear from our local communities, based on what folks bring to our attention as being problematic areas or potentially problematic areas,” DiZoglio said. “That’s why it’s important to come out often to hear from all of you, to get feedback from all of you about what areas of concern you as residents have, you as stakeholders have.”

DiZoglio previously stopped to meet with local officials from Ashby, Townsend and Pepperell for a similar conversation last month. This is DiZoglio’s eighth month in office, having previously served as a state representative and most recently state senator.

The conversation largely centered around the Groton-Dunstable Regional School District’s struggling finances, as they continuously lose out on state aid. That, in turn, means its two towns must cut budgets.

“It’s just really dire,” Scarsdale said. “Did they just forget to count communities under 15,000? The regional school situation is bad, it’s really awful.”

Ben Tafoya from the auditor’s Division of Local Mandates works closely with municipalities to tackle their unique concerns by investigating and analyzing challenges and thereby enabling towns and cities to make informed decisions. With the passage of the Student Opportunity Act, a new financial formula allows some districts to benefit while burdening others with high costs, Tafoya said.

Groton-Dunstable Superintendent Laura Chesson voiced her displeasure for the relatively new legislation. While many districts, including Chesson’s, have seen a decline in enrollment, Groton-Dunstable fails to receive the same funding allotment as Littleton Public Schools, she said. The district also is neither rural nor urban, Chesson said, which means they’re “lost” when it comes to additional help.

As a member of the Massachusetts Association of Regional School Districts board of directors, Chesson said she has “not heard of a regional school district who has had a positive impact from this.”

For fiscal 2022, Groton-Dunstable spent more than 170% of its foundation budget, according to information shared by DiZoglio’s office. In Lunenburg Public Schools, that number was just under 130% for fiscal 2022.

About two-thirds of Dunstable’s $13 million budget funnels into the school district, Town Administrator Jason Silva said, and after a failed $300,000 override, the town reduced its police and fire departments and was forced to make other “real impactful decisions.” The town is unable to accommodate new families in the district simply because “we can’t afford them,” Silva said.

“We had a 7.5% increase this fiscal year. Next fiscal year is looking absolutely brutal, as the superintendent said,” Silva said. “Who the heck knows how we’re going to pay for it at this point? Because I don’t know.”

Groton and Dunstable must also address PFAS contamination at the high school, which is just another cost.

“If we do not get these operational overrides passed, and we have to pay for PFAS on top of that, and we can’t get both towns to come to the plate with the PFAS, we’re going to be talking about a decimation of the school district,” Chesson said. “I’m not overstating that.”

By raising awareness and coming together to identify needs and problems with their local governments, communities across the state can collectively improve persistent issues across the commonwealth, DiZoglio said. She said she aims to facilitate that change through her office.

“(Constituents) come up to me and say, ‘Can we do something about this?’” DiZoglio said, “and my response is, ‘What I can do with my mandate and the mandate of our office is we can shine that big flashlight, produce these reports and then be really, really, really loud standing alongside all of you.’”

House Speaker and Auditor clash over Legislature probe

March 24, 2023 by pkzadmin

State Auditor Diana DiZoglio plans to continue with her audit of the Legislature, despite opposition from House Speaker Ron Mariano, who denounced the probe as unconstitutional and beyond the legal authority of her office.

Armed with a legal opinion from counsel for the House of Representatives that concluded the state auditor “lacks any legal authority to conduct an audit of the General Court, or any branch thereof,” Mariano wrote a scathing letter to DiZoglio on Friday, denying her request for a meeting to begin the audit process.

“That your office has the legal authority to conduct an audit of the General Court is a claim entirely without legal support or precedent, as it runs contrary to multiple, explicit provisions of the Massachusetts Constitution, and is wholly unnecessary as the public currently has full and ready access to the House’s financial information,” Mariano wrote.

According to a letter sent to Mariano by House attorney James Kennedy on Thursday, DiZoglio’s interpretation of the pertinent section in state law is incorrect, in terms of it granting her the authority to audit the Legislature.

Her office is legally allowed to audit agencies and offices within the executive branch, but not the other separate branches of government, Kennedy wrote.

“Even if one were to accept the incorrect notion that Section 12 grants the state auditor’s office with an implied statutory authority to audit the House of Representatives, such an argument would still ultimately fail because the exercise of this purported authority, absent the express consent of the House of Representatives, would violate the Massachusetts Constitution,” Kennedy wrote.

In a Friday statement, DiZoglio said she intends to move forward with her performance audit, with or without permission from the House speaker.

“I find it disappointing the speaker is fighting an audit of what is happening in the people’s house, where the people’s business is conducted, using the people’s money,” DiZoglio said. “We are not asking for permission and will continue conducting our audit as planned, to help increase transparency, accountability and equity for everyday families.”

Upon launching the probe earlier this month, DiZoglio said the “Legislature has not been audited since 1922, while Massachusetts ranks as one of the least transparent and least accessible state governments in the nation.”

This isn’t true, according to Kennedy, who said the Office of the State Auditor has never conducted an audit of the House of Representatives.

There are records, however, of a “report of the auditor for the fiscal year ending Nov. 30, 1922,” which Kennedy said he presumes DiZoglio is referring to, but “this report was not, nor does it reflect, an audit of the House of Representatives.”

Referencing Kennedy’s legal opinion, Mariano disputed claims that the House lacks transparency, saying that its financial expenditures and accounts are publicly available online.

Further, Mariano said House rules adopted each session require these financial accounts to be independently audited on an annual basis, “in accordance with auditing standards generally accepted in the United States of America.” The annual audit is filed with the House clerk for public inspection, he said.

“The people of the commonwealth are the final arbiters of the performance of their duly elected representatives,” Mariano wrote. “For an executive officer to claim any authority over the General Court is to suggest an authority over the people themselves.”

Diana DiZoglio

Footer