Campbell authorizing DiZoglio to secure counsel in audit law case

Listen to this article

In brief

• AG Andrea J. Campbell permits auditor to hire outside counsel for litigation against Legislature
• Auditor Diana DiZoglio wants to be represented by Shannon Liss-Riordan
• Dispute centers on four specific legislative audit requests

Attorney General Andrea J. Campbell will allow Auditor Diana DiZoglio to go ahead and secure outside counsel to represent her in a lawsuit against the Legislature, she said on May 12.

The previous week, the Supreme Judicial Court gave Campbell 30 days to decide whether or not she would represent DiZoglio in the auditor’s pursuit of claims against the Legislature for alleged failure to respond to four specific requests outlined in a January 2025 memo. Those requests were part of an audit that DiZoglio attempted to conduct in keeping with a 2024 law that was approved by 72 percent of Massachusetts voters.

Campbell, during an appearance on GBH Radio on May 12, said she would shortly send DiZoglio her response, “allowing her to proceed to appoint an attorney to then go into court with respect to those four things, and this will move forward.”

DiZoglio’s office said on May 12 that she planned to have Shannon Liss-Riordan, an opponent of Campbell in the 2022 Democratic primary who appeared for the auditor before the SJC, carry the case for her.

The four things specifically mentioned in the January 2025 memo and before the SJC were the official budgets for each chamber of the Legislature for fiscal years 2021, 2022, 2023 and 2024; copies of official audits of each chamber for the same fiscal years; a listing of all transactions related to each chamber’s balance forward line item for those fiscal years; and a list of all monetary settlement agreements entered into by each chamber with any current or former employees or elected members during the same timeframe.

“The court forced some clarity and specifics that we had been seeking, which was this: these four things, auditor, you can proceed with those, but you have to keep your audit within those four things, which was not something she was willing to say to us initially,” Campbell said. “So we’re going to move forward. That letter will be coming very soon to the auditor.”

The audit law said the auditor “shall audit the accounts, programs, activities and functions directly related to” the Legislature, but top legislative Democrats have resisted, citing constitutional separation of powers concerns.

“We are pleased that the AG has now publicly committed to allowing our office to appoint an attorney of our choosing to represent the will of the People in our pursuit to enforce the legislative audit in court. Attorney Shannon Liss-Riordan did an excellent job representing the 72% before the SJC and we are thrilled to be moving forward with her generous offer to take on this important case,” DiZoglio spokesperson Alysha Palumbo Garvin said. “We are cautiously optimistic that this also means the AG will be withdrawing her motion to strike on behalf of the Speaker and Senate President.”

Campbell mentioned Liss-Riordan on GBH and said that her appointment to represent DiZoglio would be subject to a “conflict check.”

When the audit case was before the SJC on May 6, Assistant AG Anne Sterman told the justices that, for the case to proceed, DiZoglio’s original complaint against the legislative leaders would need to be stricken, amended to conform to the AG’s Office’s procedures, or have a new complaint substituted for it.

“It doesn’t necessarily have to be a brand new case. But I think at the end of the day, what needs to happen is that if the attorney general authorizes a complaint within certain parameters, then that becomes the operative complaint in the case, not the one that is before the court today,” Sterman said as the court considered Campbell’s motion to strike that lawsuit.

Responding to a question from program host Jim Braude, Campbell said on May 12 there is no situation in which her office would represent the Legislature, as it has during an attempt to have the courts toss DiZoglio’s lawsuit, against DiZoglio’s special assistant AG (SAAG).

“What would happen now is, we would proceed SAAG-ing all parties, meaning giving everyone a special assistant attorney general … they then proceed back to the court on those four items, and then we’re out of it,” the AG said. “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. And we would show up, obviously, if the court asked us to.”

During the May 6 hearing on Campbell’s motion to strike DiZoglio’s lawsuit against House Speaker Ronald Mariano, Senate President Karen Spilka, and the House and Senate clerks, justices made clear they wanted to break the logjam. Justice Scott L. Kafker said the two sides were “stuck and not moving, and the people are waiting for an answer.”

“Ultimately, you two don’t get to decide to leave it in limbo indefinitely, because the people have an interest in having that resolved, and this court ultimately decides whether that’s constitutional or not, not you,” Kafker said.