JANUARY 21, 2026

Dear Cambridge and Somerville Constituents —

When it comes to the audit of the state legislature, I have been clear all along that it is my responsibility to do two things at the same time:

1. Honor the will of the voters who called for the audit of the legislature, and
2. Honor my oath of office to support our state constitution.

Unfortunately, when House Leaders re-wrote the voter-approved audit law on 24 hours' notice earlier this month, with no committee hearing and no real opportunity for public input — and when they did so in a way that limited the scope of the audit and shut the doors to the courthouse on the Auditor forever — they failed on both accounts, and I felt compelled to vote "No" as a matter of principle.

Audit Question Background

In November of 2024, I voted Yes on Question 1 to provide State Auditor Diana DiZoglio with the statutory authority to audit the state legislature.

But as Boston College Law School-trained attorney, I did so with some trepidation — because I also recognize an executive-branch audit of the legislature is bound to raise real constitutional questions relative to the separation of powers — and it didn't seem like the proponents of the ballot question were acknowledging this reality much at the time. It's also the case that both chambers of the legislature have been audited annually by professional auditing firms, and these reports are posted online once complete (See, e.g. the House Clerk's webpage).

And yet, I still voted Yes on Question 1, because, like me, most of my Cambridge and Somerville constituents care about good government, transparency, and legislative accountability. And we agree the legislature can and should do better.

Indeed, 67% of the voters in the 26th Middlesex district supported Question 1. And as State Auditor Diana DiZoglio has often reminded us, statewide, that number was even higher, at 72%.

After the ballot question passed — the Auditor requested a series of records from both the House and Senate on January 6, 2025. Both branches refused to comply, citing the state constitution's separation of powers and related doctrines.

The Auditor's initial request consisted of:

• The official budgets for the House and Senate for fiscal years 2021 through 2024.

• Copies of the professional audits that were already being conducted for the House and Senate for fiscal years 2021 through 2024.

• A listing of all transactions relating to the House and Senate's balance forward line item for fiscal years 2021 through 2024.

• A listing of all monetary settlement agreements entered into by the House or Senate with any current or former employees or members during fiscal years 2021 through 2024.

Notably — and this will become relevant when I explain more about what happened in the House earlier this month — the Auditor made it clear on January 6, 2025 that this was merely her initial request. "We anticipate requesting other documents in the coming days related to this audit," her Audit Manager wrote to the legislature. 

It surprised some at the time, but I actually felt the legislature was taking a principled stance when it declined to respond to the Auditor's initial request at that point in time. For in this moment when Donald Trump and his MAGA cronies are doing everything they can to rip our federal constitution to shreds, I felt strongly that it would be important for us in Massachusetts — the birthplace of our nation's democratic, constitutional form of government defined by the separation of powers — to uphold our constitutional principles. 

In a widely-circulated essay I posted the following month, I outlined the constitutional issues at play— and I made it clear that, in the end, it will be up to the Supreme Judicial Court to decide where to draw the lines of constitutionality in this unprecedented controversy. I defended the legislature's prerogative to protect it's constitutional powers — and I also pledged, that when the courts finally do decide, I would honor the result and would not try to re-write the law or undo the will of the voters.

The Auditor tries to sue the Legislature

With the legislature refusing to comply with the Auditor's initial request last winter, the Auditor asked the Attorney General to sue the legislature on her behalf. That quickly devolved into a months-long standoff between the AG and the Auditor, with the AG arguing the Auditor had not answered all of the questions she would need answered in order to determine whether she would represent the Auditor in suing the legislature, and the Auditor saying she had answered those questions and accusing the AG of stonewalling and conspiring with Democratic leadership.

Finally, the Auditor filed a lawsuit against the legislature herself without the Attorney General's approval. Because the AG serves as the chief legal officer for state government—including the Auditor and the legislature—the Auditor's authority to bring this litigation has been in dispute. The longstanding practice has been to route state-government litigation through the AG's office to avoid conflicts and maintain consistency in the Commonwealth's legal positions.

Last month, this controversy — not over the substance or the full scope of the audit, but simply over the ability of the Auditor to sue the legislature in these unique circumstances — finally made its way up to the state's Supreme Judicial Court. The Court asked, for the purposes of this particular lawsuit, whether the Auditor would agree to limit what she was looking for to those "four topics" listed in the January 6, 2025 letter. The Auditor agreed to do so for the sake of advancing this case, but her attorney also made it clear "there may another case" in the future that could involve other, additional requests under the voter-approved law. (See DiZoglio v. Mariano, et al., circa 37:30).

With the scope of the Auditor's initial lawsuit narrowed to those four topics, the SJC ruled that the AG had to make a final determination within 30 days as to whether she would represent the Auditor in pursing this lawsuit. Shortly thereafter, the AG announced she would allow the Auditor to retain outside counsel, and the Auditor indicated that attorney Shannon Liss-Riordan would continue representing her in this matter.

In other words, after 18 to 20 months of legal stalemate, the Auditor finally won her actual day in court. From my vantage point, this was great news because it meant we would finally be on our way to getting a definitive answer on the question of the constitutionality and the scope of the legislative audit.

The House suddenly re-writes the voter-approved audit law

Then, seemingly out of nowhere, Speaker Mariano announced the House would consider its own, sudden re-write of the legislative audit law.

This new bill emerged on June 2nd without having a committee hearing on the proposed re-write of the voter-approved audit law, and with no opportunity for meaningful input from the public or most legislators and advocacy groups.

The bill also included a second major component — an update to the state's public records law that would subject the Governor to the existing public records law, while creating a new kind of public process for obtaining records from the legislature.

House Leaders touted the fact that the ACLU of Massachusetts, Common Cause, and the Massachusetts Newspaper Publishers Association were applauding this effort — but when I called up the ACLU to ask how they felt about narrowing the scope of the legislative audit, they basically told me they had nothing to do it. Indeed, none of those organizations have explicitly indicated any support for what the House has done to the audit law.

The House bill, H.5469, would limit the legislative audit to just those four topics that the Auditor asked for in her initial request back on January 5, 2025 — and it would also prohibit the State Auditor from ever again filing a lawsuit or appealing to the judicial branch regarding any future audit.

I found this to be truly indefensible. After 18 to 20 months of taking the constitutional high ground, the House was, in effect, pulling the rug out from under the Auditor and forever closing the doors to the courthouse on her.

My Democratic colleagues who supported the bill emphasized that the House bill would give the Auditor the four things she asked for in her initial letter and in her current law suit — but the part they overlooked was how the Auditor never conceded those were the only four things she was interested in.

In addition, my Democratic colleagues also argued that the only items the Auditor would ever be entitled to under our state constitution were those four items she asked for in her initial request. And to be sure, I think this might be a reasonable legal claim — but where I strongly disagree is that I do not think it is our role as legislators to make that final constitutional determination. In our system of government, it is the Supreme Judicial Court that makes the final determination on questions of interpretation of our state constitution — not the legislature.

In other words, just as the Auditor was finally set to get a real determination on the constitutionality of the audit law and the scope and limits of her power to audit the legislature under the law, House Leaders decided for themselves that they knew exactly what the SJC would ultimately decide, so they moved to limit the Auditor to those four initial requests and to strip her of any possibility of seeking judicial review of the legislature's judgement in the future.

My strong suggestion to my House Colleagues was to let the Auditor's current lawsuit run its course. Or better yet, pass a resolution appealing to the SJC directly to ask them to weigh-in as the final arbiter of this constitutional controversy.

The House bill passed on June 3rd, with all Republicans voting No, along with Reps. Jim Hawkins, Alan Silvia and myself as the only Democrats to vote No. The bill now moves to the State Senate, where its future is unclear. Meanwhile, the Auditor's lawsuit is moving forward in the court system — but if the House bill becomes law, it would probably render that lawsuit moot.

My reflections

At the end of the day, I found this vote — which occurred on my birthday, no less! — to be truly heartbreaking. This is because I believe in the power of our state government to live up to our highest ideals. I've seen what's possible when the House engages in a robust legislative process, on issues such as reproductive freedom, gun control, or more recently, the PROTECT Act — and I regularly find myself engaged in deep conversations with constituents and activists, often trying to address their (justifiable and understandable) cynicism about the State House.

Over the course of this term, I have suggested to folks that we could allow the legal process to play out. That would provide us with a definitive, independent legal ruling that would then allow us to move forward in a way that both honors the will of the voters and upholds our constitutional principles. But if after reading all this, you feel more cynical than ever about the State House, I can't blame you!

In conclusion, I'm hoping the Senate doesn't act on the House re-write of the voter-approved audit law, and I hope the Auditor's current lawsuit makes it back to the SJC so we can finally have a chance of getting real clarity on where to draw the lines on the legislative audit. I'm speaking out now because I care deeply about our state government, and I want to see us reach a better outcome and continue building on the significant transparency reforms we passed earlier this term (such as finally making all committee votes public).

Please don't hesitate to reach out should you have any questions or concerns about this or any other matter. Thank you, as always, for being an informed and engaged constituent.

Yours in service,

Mike