Massachusetts State Auditor Diana DiZoglio is taking the state legislature to the highest court in the Commonwealth after lawmakers stonewalled her attempt to do exactly what voters told her to do: audit them.

DiZoglio is filing a complaint with the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court to enforce a 2024 ballot measure — one that passed with 72% of the vote — authorizing her office to audit the state legislature. The move comes after her office flagged nearly $12 million in alleged fraud across several public assistance programs in fiscal year 2025.

Legislative leaders refused to hand over documents. The attorney general declined to step in.

So the auditor is going over all of their heads.

72% of voters said yes. The legislature said no.

The ballot measure wasn't close. As reported by Fox News, nearly three-quarters of Massachusetts voters — in one of the bluest states in the country — crossed party lines to demand legislative accountability. DiZoglio put it plainly:

"This is something that 72% of voters came out to support, crossing party lines. You had progressive Democrats joining together with conservative Republicans. And essentially saying that they want this audit to get done."

That kind of bipartisan mandate is rare anywhere, let alone in Massachusetts. And yet, when DiZoglio notified House and Senate leaders earlier this year of her intent to conduct a performance audit, they refused to provide the necessary documents.

No explanation. No compromise. Just a closed door.

This is the state where the political class has elevated opacity to an art form. According to DiZoglio, Massachusetts is the only state in the nation where the legislature, the governor's office, and the court system all exempt themselves from public records law. Every other state has found a way to let sunlight in. Massachusetts built a moat instead.

The attorney general's curious obstruction

When DiZoglio sought enforcement of the ballot measure, the state attorney general didn't just decline to help — the AG actively undermined her. Per GBH News, the attorney general claimed DiZoglio lacks the authority to even file the lawsuit and dismissed the effort:

"This is another ploy to sidestep the required approval of my office and will bring her no closer to auditing the Legislature."

The AG went further, invoking constitutional privileges granted to the legislature "nearly 250 years ago" as a shield against modern accountability:

"This filing is not about enforcing the law. In order to enforce the law, she would answer my office's straightforward questions, including how privileges given to the Legislature in our state constitution nearly 250 years ago impact her authority to audit the Legislature."

Think about what's happening here. A Democrat auditor, backed by a supermajority of voters, tries to look at the books — and the attorney general's office argues that 18th-century legislative privilege trumps 21st-century democratic consent. The same political movement that never misses a chance to call the Constitution a "living document" suddenly discovers originalism when it protects their own.

$12 million in alleged fraud — and nobody wants to look closer

DiZoglio's office didn't come to this fight empty-handed. A fiscal year 2025 report identified nearly $12 million in alleged fraud across several public assistance programs. The specifics of which programs and who committed the fraud remain unclear, but the number alone should be enough to make every lawmaker in Boston eager to cooperate — if they had nothing to worry about.

DiZoglio asked the obvious question:

"What are they hiding? If there's nothing to hide, open up the doors, let the sun shine in. Let's do this audit."

She also made clear this isn't about gutting safety-net programs. DiZoglio, a Democrat and former member of both the Massachusetts House and Senate, shared that her own mother was a 17-year-old single parent who relied on programs like WIC before becoming a nurse. She framed the fraud issue in terms that should resonate with anyone who actually cares about the people these programs are supposed to serve:

"A lot of people rely on these programs. But folks who are committing fraud need to be held accountable. We need to root out that waste, fraud and abuse so that these systems are working as they should and people truly in need get these services."

That's not a radical position. It's common sense. Yet the legislature would rather fight in court than open the ledger.

A familiar pattern of institutional self-protection

What's unfolding in Massachusetts is a case study in how entrenched political power protects itself — even when its own voters demand otherwise. The legislature won't comply. The attorney general won't enforce. And the auditor is left with no option but to ask the state's highest court to honor what the people already decided.

This isn't a partisan story in the traditional sense. DiZoglio is a Democrat. The legislative leaders blocking her are Democrats. The attorney general running interference is a Democrat. There is no Republican villain to blame. This is one-party governance eating its own accountability mechanisms — and it reveals something conservatives have argued for years: concentrated power, unchecked by genuine oversight, will always choose self-preservation over transparency.

DiZoglio landed on the core principle:

"The Constitution is there to protect the people, not the politicians."

Massachusetts voters understood that. Their elected officials, apparently, did not.