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# Diana DiZoglio Says Andrea Campbell Is Trying to ‘Box In’ Legislative Audit
- URL: https://www.newbostonpost.com/diana-dizoglio-says-andrea-campbell-is-trying-to-box-in-legislative-audit/
- Published: 2026-05-13T20:11:13.000Z
- Updated: 2026-05-13T20:11:13.000Z
- Description: Massachusetts Auditor Diana DiZoglio accused Attorney General Andrea Campbell of trying to limit the scope of a legislative audit after the Supreme Judicial Court cleared a path for litigation over four document requests.
- Author: State House News Service
- Tags: News, Politics, State Government, #most-popular

Colin A. Young  
State House News Service

Following nearly a year and a half of squabbling between Auditor Diana DiZoglio and Attorney General Andrea Campbell, there's been movement in DiZoglio's attempt to audit the Legislature. And already, the wrangling over future document requests and audit demands is heating up.

Campbell [said Tuesday](https://www.statehousenews.com/news/legislature/dizoglio-wants-former-campbell-rival-to-represent-her-in-audit-case/article%5F6335c0db-d899-452f-8e05-7cfe595a0946.html?ref=newbostonpost.com) she would allow DiZoglio to secure outside counsel to bring a lawsuit against the Legislature for failure to respond to four specific document requests that the court identified in an order issued last week. Campbell asked DiZoglio to agree by May 18 to voluntarily dismiss the suit she brought against House Speaker Ronald Mariano and Senate President Karen Spilka in February so a new complaint can take its place. DiZoglio's office said Wednesday its lawyers would soon review Campbell's procedural requests.

In her own response, DiZoglio claimed that Campbell had tried to "box us in" with comments she made on GBH Radio on Tuesday repeatedly saying that the Supreme Judicial Court had cleared an avenue for DiZoglio to pursue action on just the four topics specifically mentioned in the court's order. DiZoglio, who is pursuing a second four-year term this year, said nothing in the order or the case limits her ability to request additional documents from the Legislature in the future.

"We are not going to ask the Legislature for a few records, call it an audit, and tell the taxpayers that’s all they get because the Attorney General’s public comments sought to box us in," DiZoglio said in a statement. "The current legal dispute only correctly considers requests made associated with this current litigation but in no way limits our office from requesting additional documents and records needed for our audit work, outside of this legal case and in accordance with the law. When the Court discussed limits to particular records right now – they were clear over and over, (as were we) that these limits are only in the context of this particular legal case, referencing January 2025 requests, but do not hinder our ability to request additional records needed to complete our audit work, or sue moving forward, after this specific legal case is resolved."

During her Tuesday appearance on GBH Radio, Campbell agreed under pressure from co-host Jim Braude that DiZoglio is not automatically barred by the court's order from pursuing an audit of other legislative matters at a later date.

"I want to be careful here. Because, right now, we have four things and the audit as defined by the court order is limited to those four things. If she wants to bring something up later, the court will play, have to play a role in that too, because it will depend, is it constitutional or not?" Campbell said. "So we will visit that when it comes. ... But I know this: on this order right now from \[Thursday\] and these four things that are specific, we'll move forward."

Last week, DiZoglio told reporters that the four audit topics she laid out in the January 2025 memo were chosen specifically in an attempt to avoid a constitutional clash. She said she originally wanted to revisit all of the issues she sought to review in the unsuccessful legislative audit she launched before voters gave her that explicit power.

"However, after speaking with staff counsel and the attorney general's office, we agreed very early on, back in January of 2025, to limit this particular audit to the issues mentioned in that letter, so as to prevent even the potential for a constitutional debate that, if we delved into other areas, might actually ensue at some point in the hypothetical future," she said after the SJC heard the case.

The four document requests that Campbell has cleared DiZoglio to pursue cover the official budgets for each chamber of the Legislature for fiscal years 2021, 2022, 2023 and 2024; copies of official audits of each chamber for the same fiscal years; a listing of all transactions related to each chamber’s balance forward line item for those fiscal years; and a list of all monetary settlement agreements entered into by each chamber with any current or former employees or elected members during the same timeframe.

Future audit attempts could revive debate over the question of constitutional separations of power and whether the Legislature's right to govern its own affairs limits the auditor's power to demand documents from it. That question has been a constant in the back-and-forth between DiZoglio and Campbell to this point.

Campbell's office said in its Tuesday letter to DiZoglio that the auditor's office "has not defined its position on the issue" of constitutional limits on its audit authority. First Assistant Attorney General Pat Moore wrote that Campbell's office "will not undertake to define the \[Office of the State Auditor's\] position for it; nor will we litigate the issue for the OSA."

Moore said Campbell's office made its position on the scope of legislative privilege clear in correspondence with DiZoglio's office and also in a filing it made in a case last year that involved former Sen. Dean Tran.

In that case, Campbell's office argued that the so-called Speech and Debate Clause of Article 21 of the Declaration of Rights "does not protect members of the Legislature from prosecution for acts that fall outside the legislative sphere or render such members exempt from ordinary criminal laws."

"It protects members of the Legislature only from prosecutions relating to deliberation, speech, and debate in each house of the Legislature and it enables legislators to execute the functions and duties of their office without fear of prosecution," the brief says.

In his letter to DiZoglio's office this week, Moore said what was laid out in the Tran brief "is the view of the \[attorney general's office\] on behalf of the Commonwealth." And if DiZoglio's office uses the litigation newly authorized by Campbell to make "arguments inconsistent with that scope, the AGO may share its view of the issue with the Court in service of its responsibility to maintain a uniform and consistent legal policy," he said.

Foreseeing "the possibility of a conflict between the position of the OSA and the AGO on this issue," Moore said the special assistant attorney general representing DiZoglio will be a "conflict SAAG," meaning that Campbell's office will not require or seek to review or pre-approve filings made by them.

"However, no litigation other than that expressly addressed in the Court Order ... and authorized by this letter may be pursued without further approval, and any attempt by the OSA to expand the scope beyond the Court Order and this letter is impermissible," Moore said.

Moore specifically greenlit the auditor's office to "bring a cause of action under G.L. c. 11, § 12, to enforce the document requests set forth in paragraph 3 of the Court Order, against the leader and the clerk of each respective chamber." He also said, though, that Campbell's office "expresses no view as to whether those leaders and officials are properly amenable to suit (nor whether they are the appropriate parties)."

Moore said he anticipates that, should DiZoglio prevail in that litigation, the result would be "a judicial determination that the House and Senate are subject to G.L. c. 11, § 12, and therefore have a responsibility to comply with some or all of the document requests."

Only if the court rules that way and to the extent that legislative leaders do not comply with the law as determined by the court, would Campbell's office agree to let DiZoglio pursue a mandamus action against the Legislature. That would ask the court to order government officials to fulfill certain legal duties, but state courts have previously rejected mandamus against the Legislature.

"\[S\]uch pursuit is beyond the scope of this authorization and will require further approval," Moore wrote. "That is for three reasons: no such remedy is presently required; established state law presumes that it will not be; and a mandamus claim would introduce another novel constitutional issue into the already novel dispute between the State Auditor and the Legislature (i.e., the extent to which mandamus is available against the Legislature and its officials in this context) that need not be addressed at this time."

Asked Wednesday about DiZoglio's new authorization to pursue litigation against the Legislature, Spilka said she was "extremely grateful to the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court for finally getting from the auditor exactly what it is that she is looking for and setting parameters for giving to her."

The court said that DiZoglio made her request clear in January 2025.

"I look forward to working on this," the Senate president said. "But this was a good day for the Legislature to finally hear what the auditor is exactly looking for."

\[MassterList Editor Gin Dumcius contributed to this report.\]