Massachusetts Auditor DiZoglio’s Office files emergency motion in response to Attorney General’s motion to strike audit lawsuit

BOSTON – Today, State Auditor Diana DiZoglio’s Office filed an Emergency Motion in response to the Attorney General’s Motion to Strike the Auditor’s lawsuit seeking outside counsel to defend the voter-mandated legislative audit.

The State Auditor’s Office stated that the “Attorney General Andrea Campbell has a duty under the law to represent the public interest – including the roughly 2.3 million Massachusetts residents who voted in favor of an audit of the State Legislature in 2024.”

The statement reads as follows:

“Not only has the Attorney General not represented the interests of the 72% of voters who overwhelmingly approved this audit, but she has actively fought against enforcing this law. Now the Attorney General’s Motion to Strike on behalf of Speaker Ron Mariano and Senate President Karen Spilka clearly shows she is an adversary not only to my office but, most disappointingly, an adversary to the public interest her office is statutorily obligated to represent.”

“The Attorney General cannot continue to claim that she is representing the Auditor’s legal interests while simultaneously conflicting herself out by taking an adversarial legal posture in court, against the Auditor, and for the Legislature. The AG’s actions, in choosing a side, necessitate intervention by the court with respect to the appointment of a Special Assistant Attorney General.” 

“Attorney General Campbell has abdicated her duty to defend the public interest,” said Auditor DiZoglio. “Democracy is under attack and the people deserve an answer from the courts. AG Campbell claims I am a ‘dissenting state official’ and that she is the ‘gatekeeper’ to the courts, but those gates were never meant to be locked to the people. Gatekeeping justice isn’t leadership. It’s obstruction. The courts belong to the people, not the politicians, so yes – I dissent.”