Last week, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court gave AG Andrea Campbell a 30-day deadline to end a standoff with fellow Democrat Diana DiZoglio and decide whether the AG would represent the auditor in court. DiZoglio filed a lawsuit against the Massachusetts Legislature in early 2025 in an effort to force the body to comply with her long, contentious battle to open the books of Beacon Hill. It only took the attorney general a few days to settle the matter after the judiciary made its ruling.
“They made it crystal clear, and they pushed the auditor in a loving way -- they pushed us, they pushed her -- to actually commit to an audit that only included four areas, and those four areas she cannot go outside of that, those are the very specifics we were looking for," said Campbell. "The court just gave it to us.”
While Campbell’s office did not respond to WAMC’s request for comment, she discussed the ruling and her subsequent decision Tuesday on Boston Public Radio’s “Ask the AG” program.
“So, I have a letter that will come from my office to the auditor, allowing her to proceed, to appoint an attorney, to then go into court with respect to those four things, and this will move forward," she continued.
That letter from the AG’s office confirming the decision was issued Tuesday evening.
DiZoglio’s suit against the Legislature will be refiled specifically for access to the budgets, audits, transaction records for balance forward line items, and monetary settlements for both the Massachusetts House and Senate in fiscal years 2021, 2022, 2023, and 2024.
The auditor had a different take on the ruling from Campbell.
“The justices recognized that there is an issue when the Attorney General's Office refuses to make a decision forever into eternity," DiZoglio told WAMC. "The attorney general is supposed to decide on defense and decide whether or not she is going to defend the state agency or allow them to get their own counsel. But if the AG refuses to ever make a decision, it can leave cases like ours in limbo forever, essentially nullifying the ability of the court to be able to essentially do its job at some point.”
Speaking with WAMC Tuesday, DiZoglio made it clear that the bad blood between her and the AG made any chance of reconciliation unimaginable.
“If she suddenly turned around at us, though, and said, suddenly she wants to represent our office, unfortunately, at this point, due to the fact that the attorney general has been gaslighting us this entire time and telling falsehoods about our office and manipulating the conversations that our office has had with her office to the people of the commonwealth, we simply do not trust her to be able to be our office's legal representative, and she knows that,” she said.
The auditor says she wants Shannon Liss-Riordan to represent her office in court for the upcoming legal battle, noting that Campbell would once again represent the legislative powerbrokers on Beacon Hill against an audit backed by more than 70% of voters in the 2024 state election.
“We would like attorney Shannon Liss-Riordan to be our legal counsel, because she did represent us in this case against the speaker and the senate president, who the attorney general represented,” said DiZoglio.
Labor attorney Liss-Riordan unsuccessfully ran against Campbell for the AG seat in the 2022 Democratic primary.
On GBH Tuesday, the AG explained what would happen next now that DiZoglio has been cleared to bring on outside counsel, including her leaving the proceedings with a new specially appointed attorney general representing the Legislature.
“What would happen now is, we would proceed SAAGing all parties, meaning getting everyone a Special Assistant Attorney General, after you run conflicts," said Campbell. "They then proceed back to the court on those four items, and then we're out of it. They have the attorney to go forward. But the only reason we would be pulled back in, which is always a possibility, is if the court came to us and asked us our opinion on something, including the constitutionality of something else.”
Massachusetts is regularly rated among the least transparent states in the union. It’s the only state where the Legislature, judiciary, and governor are all exempt from public records laws. Lawmakers overwhelmingly vote in secret, without records of which elected officials voted for or against legislation on either the floor or in committee. Committee reports on laws are not released to the public, and the Democrat-controlled Legislature consistently votes in line with party leaders.
