For those weary of waiting for answers on a long-sought audit of the Legislature, the long-running melodrama may almost be over.
Justices of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court heard arguments Wednesday over whether and how state Auditor Diana DiZoglio can challenge the Legislature over its refusal to submit to an audit from her office, which was made possible through a ballot question voters approved nearly two years ago.
The justices appeared inclined to rule on an even bigger issue hanging over the fight — whether the audit itself passes constitutional muster. At the very least, the justices seemed intent on putting to bed part of the fractious debate that’s raged between DiZoglio and state lawmakers and Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell.
“People have an interest in having that resolved, and this court ultimately decides whether that’s constitutional,” Justice Scott Kafker said, addressing Assistant Massachusetts Attorney General Anne Sterman, who represented the Legislature, and the attorney for DiZoglio, Shannon Liss-Riordan. “You’re both battling each other to exhaustion, and we’re going nowhere. Don’t we have to push that forward?”
The case before the court is not about whether DiZoglio has the authority to audit certain aspects of the Legislature, but whether she could sue legislative leaders to force them to comply without going through the attorney general’s office.
A second issue before the court involves a related fight DiZoglio is having with Campbell over whether that office would represent the auditor in her legal challenge. Campbell has moved to block DiZoglio’s lawsuit against the Legislature, while the auditor has turned to an outside attorney, Liss-Riordon, to represent her.
But justices began poking at the broader question anyway, pressing Sterman about what information the attorney general’s office needs to determine whether it can represent DiZoglio in court, a debate that’s all but put the issue at a standstill for months.
DiZoglio laid out the scope of the audit in a letter in January 2025, Justice Dalila Argaez Wendlandt pointed out. In that letter, DiZoglio requested the chambers’ budgets, copies of other official audits, and a list of all settlement agreements with current and former employees since fiscal year 2021.
“Why can’t we decide as to those three topics, whether there’s legal merit to that or not, whether the legislative privilege prevents it or not?” Wendlandt asked. “All of those kind of constitutional questions as to those narrow issues, I don’t understand what the AG’s unified legal policy is against bringing that forward.”
Lawmakers are wary that DiZoglio intends to burrow much deeper into their operations. Much of the information she’s seeking is already public, they say, and DiZoglio — a former legislator herself — has acknowledged there are potential “threats” to her ability to impartially audit chambers in which she was once a member and with whose leaders she has openly feuded.
The audit “has never been about auditing the Legislature,” House Speaker Ron Mariano wrote in an op-ed in March. “It has been about advancing the auditor’s own political ambition.”
Justice Gabrielle R. Wolohojian floated the idea of a court order giving Campbell a 30-day deadline to “fish or cut bait” — essentially to decide whether she will represent DiZoglio or legislative leaders, or sit out the lawsuit altogether.
Liss-Riordan, DiZglio’s attorney, welcomed the idea.
“Having a set deadline by the court could be helpful here, because the attorney general has effectively said ‘no,’ but has not admitted that she said ‘no,’ ” she told reporters after the hearing.
The audit has been DiZoglio’s rallying cry since she ran for the relatively obscure statewide seat in 2022. She’s turned her advocacy into something like performance art — often literally breaking out into song at events to press for the audit.
Though the justices seemed eager to move beyond the procedural debate, at the core of the legal debate they heard Wednesday was a technical question: DiZoglio wants the court to allow her office to appoint a special prosecutor, effectively sidestepping Campbell’s office. Campbell, who has said DiZoglio is stonewalling requests from her office about the scope of the audit she intends to conduct, moved to toss DiZoglio’s lawsuit, arguing the auditor lacked the authority to sue the Legislature.
The stakes are high for DiZoglio, Campbell, and the legislative leaders who have long rebuffed the auditor’s probe. But the court’s decision in the case is likely only the first hurdle DiZoglio must clear before she can dig into the Legislature’s books.
In asking the court to strike DiZoglio’s suit, Campbell argued that her office is the “gatekeeper,” with the power to decide if or when disputes between branches of state government ought to be decided by the court.
On the other side, Liss-Riordan, an attorney who lost to Campbell in the 2022 Democratic primary for attorney general, is helping plead DiZoglio’s case alongside her office’s general counsel, Michael Leung-Tat.
Legislators have warned that allowing the auditor’s office to probe the Legislature would violate the constitutional separation of powers between the branches. In their brief, DiZoglio’s lawyers said those same constitutional protections mean the judiciary, not Campbell, ought to be the “final arbiter” of the law’s constitutionality, and that her efforts to kill DiZoglio’s lawsuit infringed on the auditor’s right to access the courts.
Lawmakers are also choosing sides. House Republican lawmakers threw their support behind DiZoglio, accusing Campbell in legal filings of creating “an untenable roadblock” for DiZoglio to sue lawmakers.
In a surprising move, one Democratic lawmaker — Representative Alan Silvia — also filed a brief supporting DiZoglio, bucking Democratic leaders with whom DiZoglio has been warring. In the court filing, Silvia argued that Campbell exceeded her authority in moving to toss DiZoglio’s lawsuit and maintained the auditor has the authority to enforce the voter-approved law.
Voters in 2024 overwhelmingly approved the ballot measure, and calls for an audit have animated Republicans and progressive Democrats alike.
But lawmakers have resisted the effort, both by casting doubt on the constitutionality of the audit and doing their best to ignore DiZoglio, who often heckles them online.
Shortly after the ballot question passed, House lawmakers tweaked their internal rules to allow DiZoglio to choose an outside firm to conduct a financial audit of the chamber, a tradeoff that DiZoglio quickly rejected. The Senate formed a subcommittee tasked with handling the chamber’s response to the audit, though DiZoglio declined to meet with them in 2025.
Lawmakers have repeatedly noted that both the House and Senate are already subject to a financial audit annually.
It’s done little to quell DiZoglio’s populist crusade. The Methuen Democrat has effectively been campaigning on her quest to audit the Legislature since she entered the race for the open seat she would win in 2022. The audit also remains popular with voters: 64 percent of Democratic primary voters said the Legislature should comply, according to an April Suffolk University/Boston Globe poll.
Among the most ardent supporters: Republicans running for office this cycle. GOP candidates up and down the ballot rallied around the law in speeches at the state Republican Party Convention last month.
Mike Minogue, a Hamilton Republican running for governor, offered to bankroll the lawsuit last year — DiZoglio later declined, saying it had “become a distraction” — while GOP Senate hopeful John Deaton filed a brief in support of DiZoglio’s case currently before the SJC.
Notably, DiZoglio does not have a declared Republican challenger this fall.
Kelly Garrity can be reached at kelly.garrity@globe.com.