OPINION: The Failure to audit the Massachusetts legislature proves Democracy is officially dead in Massachusetts

2025 is the year Democracy officially died in Massachusetts.

It has been 281 days since 72% of Massachusetts voters approved a ballot to audit the legislators, yet no progress has been made towards an audit. Legislators have resisted the will of the people by ignoring the Massachusetts State Auditor DiZoglio’s attempts to conduct a full legislative audit. Neither Governor Healey nor Attorney General Andrea Campbell has taken any legal action to enforce the ballot question.

With 72% of voters approving the audit, auditing the legislators is the most popular political call for action Massachusetts has seen in decades. For example, legalizing marijuana in the state was approved by 53% of voters yet legislators turned the ballot question into law fairly quickly. In 2022, Governor Healey received 63% of the vote, and Attorney General Andrea Campbell received 62% of the vote. The audit is far more popular than marijuana, Healey, and Campbell, yet it is dead.

There is nothing more Democratic than a ballot question and they aren’t easy to get approved. Organizers must obtain a lot of signatures, the question goes through a legal process where the Massachusetts Attorney General must approve it, and a majority of voters must vote yes.

In Massachusetts, politicians seem to pick and choose which ballot questions to enact and which ones to kill based on what is beneficial to them. For example, when it came to adding a 1% tax on millionaires in Massachusetts, the ballot question barely passed with 52% of the vote yet Massachusetts politicians acted quickly to turn the ballot question into law and collected billions of dollars. Same with legalizing marijuana, there was a lot of tax money to collect so the ballot question was enacted quickly. The ballot question to audit the legislators received 20% more votes than legalizing marijuana or the surtax on millionaires, and hasn’t even been seriously considered by Massachusetts Democrats 281 days later.

This issue is less about Democrat politicians refusing to take up the audit and more about the voters allowing their vote to be ignored. Ignoring a ballot question with overwhelming support is a test; can politicians ignore the will of the people and not pay a price politically? So far the answer is yes. Massachusetts voters spend more time getting upset about Karen Reed trials, President Trump, and other things that barely impact their lives while ignoring politicians ignoring their vote.

2025 is the year Democracy officially died in Massachusetts.