The Audit Fight:
State Auditor Diana DiZoglio has decided to escalate her fight with the state legislature by taking her case against them to the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court.
This case brought by the auditor has not been approved by Attorney General Andrea Campbell, as all cases by the state are supposed to be.
The attorney general said in a statement to the Boston Globe that the auditor does not have the authority to bring the case against the legislature.
She went on to say that this case is “another ploy to sidestep the required approval of my office and will bring her no closer to auditing the Legislature.”
The attorney general has maintained for years now that DiZoglio’s crusade to audit the legislature violates the Massachusetts Constitution. Campbell has said that she has tried to work with DiZoglio and requested more information from her, but the attorney general has said that she has not received the requested information.
DiZoglio brought this most recent case through the general counsel employed by her state office. One of the issues DiZoglio is asking the court to consider in her suit is her ability to retain private counsel of her choosing for this matter, according to the Boston Globe.
Sen. Cindy Friedman, who chairs a subcommittee set up to manage DiZoglio’s ballot measure, said to the Boston Globe that DiZoglio has declined to testify before the committee.
Friedman said the Senate has “tried to work with the Auditor and her office to understand what she is seeking to audit.”
Friedman went on to say, “We must assume that the Auditor’s intentions are purely political.”
Friedman also addressed the constitutional implications of DiZoglio’s efforts.
“At a time when constitutional norms are being challenged nationally, we cannot allow them to be undermined here in Massachusetts,” Friedman told the Globe.
DiZoglio appeared on Fox News Feb. 15 to defend her actions on auditing the legislature and promoted the findings of her latest audit on state benefits fraud.
DiZoglio is a former member of the Massachusetts House and Senate and has been accused of not being impartial on issues relating to the legislature.
DiZoglio admitted multiple times in state paperwork that “there are ‘threats’ to her ability to impartially audit the Legislature because of her past work as a Massachusetts lawmaker,” as published by the Boston Herald.
Before hearing in the House Ways and Means Committee to fund her state office, DiZoglio said to reporters that legislators do not like her and haven’t for years.
“They’ve been trying to retaliate for years and years now. I don’t expect this year to go any differently.”
Read All About It:
- Gov. Maura Healey demanded that New Hampshire Governor Kelly Ayotte block the construction of a proposed Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Merrimack, New Hampshire.
“We should be opposing ICE’s tactics, not allowing them to expand,” Healey said to NBC News Boston. “We certainly should not be allowing ICE to build new human warehouses when they can’t be trusted to keep people safe and protect due process. I oppose this in the strongest possible terms, and I am demanding that Gov. Ayotte do everything in her power to block a new ICE facility in Southern New Hampshire.”
The facility would be able to hold up to 1,500 people at a time.
“Concerns have been raised about treatment and conditions at the facility, as well as the potential burden on local resources, loss of tax revenue and possible tax increases for residents,” Asher Klein and Oscar Margain wrote for NBC News Boston.
Ayotte said in a statement, “Lyons’ comments today are another example of the troubling pattern of issues with this process. Officials from the Department of Homeland Security continue to provide zero details of their plans for Merrimack, never mind providing any reports or surveys.”
- A Massachusetts State Trooper was seriously injured after their cruiser was hit on I-95 in Salisbury, just south of the New Hampshire border.
According to the state police, the trooper was pulled over with their emergency lights on to remove a ladder that had fallen into the left lane. The cruiser was hit just after the trooper returned to the vehicle.
The driver who struck the cruiser was allegedly using their cellphone at the time of the crash and state police have said that the driver will be facing numerous criminal charges as a result of the crash, according to CBS News.
- Polymarket is suing Attorney General Campbell to stop a possible shutdown of its sports prediction contract markets, according to Bloomberg Law.
The company brought the suit in the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts. They are arguing that federal regulations preempt any state-level regulations on their business.
- Gov. Healey announced that the state is launching an artifical intelligence tool for the state workforce. She hopes that the tool will help streamline governance throughout the state and will help prove that Massachusetts is leading the way in AI, according to 7 News Boston.
