Ray Mariano: Peek behind curtain of state Legislature long overdue

State Auditor Diana DiZoglio wants to audit the Massachusetts State Legislature.

I know that DiZoglio has served in the Legislature for 10 years — six in the House and four in the Senate — and she thinks that gives her some special insight into how those bodies work. But she’s been the state auditor for about 15 minutes. What gives her the right to pull back the curtain so the rest of us can see what’s really happening?

First, let’s look at how the Legislature operates. Last year, the members of the House and Senate took about seven months off and still collected full-time pay. They were so busy applying tanning lotion that they couldn’t find the time to finish giving taxpayers back about $3 billion as required by law.

And while they were shuffling off to Hampton Beach and other shores, they also left a sweeping climate and energy bill proposed by then-Gov. Charlie Baker and other important initiatives on the table unfinished. Some people complain (not me) that frazzled teachers get a couple of months off in the summer while they try to recover. But these guys get spring-summer-fall-winter vacations that take up most of the year.

Then there’s the issue of them exempting themselves from the state’s Open Meeting Law. While local officials aren’t allowed to discuss even the most insignificant issues with their colleagues away from public view, the leadership in the Legislature gets to decide on the details of a multibillion-dollar state budget in private and then trot it out for a routine rubber-stamp vote in public.

Beyond that, some legislation is crafted entirely behind closed doors and then rushed to the floor, giving legislators, the media and the public less than 24 hours to review the details.

This year, with gun violence on the rise, legislative leaders are stuck in a petty procedural dispute stalling important gun reform laws. Not a problem because they’ve been on vacation anyway.

Still, I don’t get it. What’s the big deal? It’s not like three former House speakers have been criminally indicted for crimes while in office. Or that broad audits of the Legislature stopped just before the first of these speakers was indicted. Oh wait, that is what happened.

The key to the audit is precisely what DiZoglio’s team will be looking at. Broadly, the audit will look at all of the activities, functions, processes and procedures of the Legislature.

More specifically, she wants to look at things like adherence to the Open Meeting Law and legislation being rushed to the floor for a vote. DiZoglio also wants her office to look whether procurement practices are in line with state law.

When I spoke to her, she told me that she also wants to look where and when nondisclosure agreements — legal documents that can and have been used to silence victims of sexual harassment — have been used in the House. As far as she can tell, DiZoglio says these agreements have been used 33 times under the watchful eye of former speakers.

DiZoglio knows something about the subject. Fresh out of college, she took a job in the House of Representatives and found herself a victim of sexual harassment. She was forced to sign a nondisclosure agreement in order to get her six weeks of severance pay.

A few years later, having been elected as a state representative herself, DiZoglio took to the House floor to contradict the House Speaker as he said that those agreements were never used. She thinks the public has a right to know all the details — especially if tax dollars were used to silence victims.

Former State Auditor Suzanne Bump and House Speaker Ron Mariano say that the auditor’s office doesn’t have the authority to audit the Legislature. Mariano (no relation) also cites the separation of powers in his reasoning.

DiZoglio disagrees. “Nothing in the statute expressly exempts the Legislature from being subject to the powers of the auditor’s office.” She also points out that over the years the Legislature has been audited by the state auditor 113 times. As for the idea of separation of powers, the auditor’s office has investigated issues relating to the judiciary.

So where does this stand? Well, the Auditor’s Office has asked the state’s Attorney General to lend her support to encourage the Legislature to comply with the law. You don’t need to be clairvoyant to see that even with a nudge from the AG, leaders in the Legislature are unlikely to relent. That means that DiZoglio may end up suing the Legislature to proceed with the audit.

Failing that, DiZoglio can pursue a ballot initiative where voters can weigh in. But that will take years with legislative leaders fighting the effort every step of the way. The legislative strategy seems to be: refuse, delay, stonewall, repeat. And unfortunately, so far their strategy seems to be working.

Most of the people who serve in the Legislature are there to serve — to do good things. They are honorable men and women who have the very best of intentions. But their service is tainted and restricted by the rules and arcane practices that rest almost all of the power in a few leaders — leaders who, for obvious reasons, don’t want the rest of us peeking behind the curtain.

It's decades past time for someone to shine a spotlight on how the Legislature operates. Maybe, just maybe, if DiZoglio gets her way, what she reveals will force some meaningful changes in the way business is conducted on Beacon Hill.

Email Raymond V. Mariano at rmariano.telegram@gmail.com. He served four terms as mayor of Worcester and previously served on the City Council and School Committee. He grew up in Great Brook Valley and holds degrees from Worcester State College and Clark University. He was most recently executive director of the Worcester Housing Authority. His column appears weekly in the Sunday Telegram.

This article originally appeared on Telegram & Gazette: Ray Mariano column on state auditor Diana DiZoglio and Legislature