DiZoglio, advocates plan legislative audit newsmaker

Massachusetts Auditor Diana DiZoglio

Massachusetts Auditor Diana DiZoglio AP FILE PHOTO/MARY SCHWALM

By SAM DORAN

State House News Service

Published: 12-03-2024 4:11 PM

BOSTON — Auditor Diana DiZoglio plans to hold a press conference Wednesday marking a month since her legislative audit ballot question cruised to victory. But the victorious Question 1 will be staying on ice for at least another month.

The Methuen Democrat is teaming up with the conservative Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance and the progressive Act On Mass group for her 11 a.m. presser on Wednesday, ahead of a noon Governor’s Council meeting where the panel and Gov. Maura Healey are set to sign off on the November election’s voting returns.

“The press conference will focus on what the MA State Constitution compels the legislature to do on Thursday, December 5,” MassFiscal said in an advisory.

Question 1, which passed overwhelmingly in every Massachusetts municipality, explicitly authorizes DiZoglio’s office to perform audits of the Legislature.

Her attempt to implement the law could snarl its way through the court system, but not yet: successful ballot questions do not take effect until 30 days after the election results are certified by the governor and Governor’s Council, according to the secretary of state’s office, unless the question’s language sets another specific effective date.

Pending council approval at Wednesday’s meeting, the new audit law would take effect on Friday, Jan. 3, two days into next Legislature’s new two-year term.

In a letter to DiZoglio last month, Senate Counsel James DiTullio and House Counsel James Kennedy shared the same timeline, citing a Supreme Judicial Court opinion from 1972 “recognizing that an election is not deemed complete until the votes are tabulated by the Governor and Governor’s Council.”

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