A “No Kings” rally is deliberate for Boston Saturday to protest the Trump Administration. If folks actually need to rail towards politicians working roughshod over the American folks, they need to head to the State Home.
That’s the place the state Legislature continues to defy the need of the voters who final yr authorized an audit of the physique by 72%. That poll measure gave the state auditor the authority to look at “the accounts, packages, actions and features” of the Legislature,
Beacon Hill responded: “no cube.”
At first, the pushback was boilerplate authorized volleying. When State Auditor Diana DiZoglio first tried the audit proper after the election, legal professionals for the Massachusetts Home and Senate stated her transfer was “premature” as a result of the legislation had not but taken impact.
“An initiative petition for a change in legislation is efficient 30 days after the state election through which the petition is authorized, until in any other case supplied within the textual content of the petition. Query 1 contained no such provision,” Senate Counsel James DiTullio and Home Counsel James Kennedy wrote. “Moreover, this 30-day interval doesn’t begin till the election has been duly licensed.”
The months that adopted have been extra of the identical. Because the Herald reported, Home and Senate management made very clear that they weren’t going to let DiZoglio look into their affairs with out a struggle, out of concern over the legislative department’s independence from the manager. However the State Auditor saved at it, making an attempt to pry open the closed doorways of the State Home whereas lawmakers did their greatest to maintain them locked tight.
DiZoglio even requested Lawyer Normal Andrea Campbell final December to greenlight a lawsuit to drive the Home and Senate to adjust to the trouble to open up their funds and reveal particulars on inner proceedings, based on a letter obtained by the Herald.
DiZoglio invited Campbell “to hitch our workplace’s efforts to disrupt the shameful establishment and shed a little bit of daylight on the woefully opaque” Legislature.
The State Home could as nicely be Fortress Dracula with all of the sunlight-shunning occurring.
A spokesperson for Campbell stated the legal professional common “respects the need of the voters with regard to Query 1.”
That was then, and that is now. DiZoglio is arguing that the legal professional common is “working along with legislative leaders” to forestall the probe from unfolding.
Campbell stated in a press release shared with the Herald “with a purpose to transfer ahead, the auditor should handle our unanswered questions, together with assurances that the audit stays inside the confines of the structure.”
DiZoglio’s common counsel and deputy auditor, Michael Leung-Tat, confirmed to the Herald that the workplace is “actively pursuing the submitting of a lawsuit” towards the Legislature.
And we’re closing in on a yr since Massachusetts voters stated “open the books, let the folks know what’s occurring.”
This shouldn’t be a political recreation of keep-away. The poll measure handed, that ought to imply one thing. It does in a democracy.
That’s one thing to bear in mind when “No Kings” protestors march simply yards away on the Boston Frequent.
