Beacon Hill Roll Call records local senators’ votes on the only roll call from the week of May 25 to May 29. There were no roll calls in the House last week.
The battle over a legislative audit (S 3104)
The latest chapter was written in the ongoing saga regarding whether State Auditor Diana DiZoglio has the right to audit the House and the Senate. In the November 2024 election, voters approved Question 1 asking them if they favor allowing the state auditor to audit the Legislature. The question passed overwhelmingly, with 72% in favor. It has now been almost 19 months since the voters approved the audit but an audit has yet to take place.
Senate President Karen Spilka, D-Ashland, and House Speaker Ron Mariano, D-Quincy, have continued to delay the audit, arguing that it would violate the separation of powers in the state’s Constitution.
Last week, the Senate 33-6, approved resolutions, sponsored by Sens. Cindy Friedman, D-Arlington, and Paul Feeney, D-Foxborough, requiring that the Senate provide some financial information that DiZoglio has long requested. The resolutions laid out the history of its dispute with the auditor and made it clear that senators are limiting the records they will provide to those records discussed in recent litigation.
“Resolved, that the Senate, in providing said records, does so voluntarily but does not concede that it may be audited pursuant to Section 12 of Chapter 11 of the General Laws without violating the Constitution of the commonwealth,” the resolutions state. “And be it further resolved, that the Senate reserves all its rights to object to any such audit, present or future, and on any grounds, including, but not limited to, that Chapter 250 of the Acts of 2024 violates the Senate’s constitutional rulemaking authority, separation of powers, legislative immunity and privilege, and the legal presumption that statutes operate prospectively and cannot be applied retroactively in the absence of clear legislative intent.”
All five Senate Republicans, Sens. Kelly Dooner, R-Taunton, Peter Durant, R-Spencer, Ryan Fattman, R-Sutton, Patrick O’Connor, R-Weymouth, and Bruce Tarr, R-Gloucester, voted against the resolutions, while all the Democrats, except for Sen. Mark Montigny, D-New Bedford, voted in favor of them.
Dooner said she doesn’t appreciate the implication by supporters of the resolutions that a “No” vote is voting against sharing these documents. She said the Senate doesn’t need a resolution to send the documents. She noted that the resolutions were proposed just a few minutes earlier and senators have not had enough time to properly go through them. She said she supports sharing these documents and any other documents that are requested.
Senate Democrats said last week’s action stems from clarity gained at the Supreme Judicial Court earlier this month, as Attorney General Andrea Campbell intervened in a lawsuit DiZoglio filed against top lawmakers.
The four document requests that Campbell has cleared DiZoglio to pursue cover 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 time frame.
“Recent guidance from the Supreme Judicial Court has provided much-needed clarity on the materials the auditor has requested,” Friedman said. “We are therefore moving forward in good faith while remaining mindful of the constitutional safeguards that protect the separation of powers. The Senate has consistently supported transparency and accountability with respect to taxpayer dollars. That’s why our finances are publicly reported, and our spending information is available online.”
Friedman continued, “We believe this approach strikes the right balance of responding to the call for enhanced public transparency while upholding the oath we each take to the Massachusetts Constitution — and will allow us to continue our focus on delivering meaningful policy change for the residents of the commonwealth.”
“This resolution is not an act of transparency — it is a political retreat disguised as accountability, complete with a built-in escape hatch the Senate can pull at any time,” said Fattman, who voted against the resolutions. “For two whole years, the clear will of the people (72% of voters) has been ignored, and only now, with the courts poised to compel an audit, does leadership suddenly attempt to appear aligned with the public. Buried within this resolution is language explicitly reserving the Senate’s right to object to any audit at any time and on any grounds, undermining the very accountability they claim to support. That is not reform. It is the same political game of last-resort cooperation and calculated distraction, timed conveniently days ahead of the Democratic State Convention.”
“Today, the Senate took action in the name of transparency and an accountable state government,” said Sen. Jo Comerford, D-Northampton. “Thanks to clarity from the Supreme Judicial Court, our financial documents will soon be on their way to the Office of the State Auditor.”
“The Senate spent a year and a half ignoring the law,” said Aaron Singer, producer and director of the documentary “Shadows on the Hill.” “They lost in court and are now presenting bare-minimum compliance as reform. Instead of complying with the audit voters approved, their resolution turns over only the four categories of records already in court, while preserving their ability to keep fighting full compliance.”
DiZoglio criticized the Senate action. “It’s really sad that Senate leadership is so detached from reality that they think anyone believes they’ve suddenly agreed to give me these specific records for any reason other than that the court is about to lay down the law, again, and order them to obey the people’s wishes,” she said. “But this is not a public records request, it’s an audit. So, for an audit to actually be conducted, the Legislature needs to comply and cooperate with our audit team. The Senate president has just asked her membership to vote that they do not acknowledge and will not cooperate with the 72% voter-mandated law — that’s not leadership, it’s obstruction.”
A “Yes” vote is for the resolutions.
- Sen. Jo Comerford — Yes
- Sen. Paul Mark — Yes
Also up on Beacon Hill
Most incumbent legislators have no opponent
Last week was the deadline for candidates for state representative and state senator to file their nomination papers with Secretary of State William Galvin’s office. Each candidate for the House needed 150 verified signatures to qualify while each Senate candidate needed 300.
There are 200 seats (160 House seats and 40 Senate seats) up for grabs in the upcoming 2026 state election, but only 83 of those (41.5%) will be contested, according to the Secretary of State’s Office. In the remaining 117 districts, only the incumbent is on the ballot in 115 districts. There are two House districts where the incumbent is not running, but only one non-incumbent candidate is running for the seat.
That means there are 25 incumbent senators (62.5% of the 40 total seats) and 90 incumbent representatives (56.2% of the 160 total seats) who will not face any challenger in the Sept. 1 primary election or the Nov. 3 general election. Those numbers could change if anyone decides to run a write-in campaign, but only a handful, if any candidates, ever wage a write-in campaign.
Conference committee appointed to handle budget compromise
Senate President Karen Spilka, D-Ashland, and House Speaker Ron Mariano, D-Quincy, have named the members of the six-member House-Senate conference committee charged with hammering out a compromise version of the separate fiscal year 2027 state budget versions that were approved by each branch. The price tag of the House version is $63.41 billion while the Senate version logs in at $63.37 billion. There are some major differences between the two chambers that will have to be ironed out by the committee.
Mariano appointed House Ways and Means Committee Chair Rep. Aaron Michlewitz, D-Boston, and Reps. Kip Diggs, D-Barnstable, and Todd Smola, R-Warren.
Spilka appointed Senate Ways and Means Committee Chair Sen. Mike Rodrigues, D-Westport, and Sens. Jo Comerford, D-Northampton, and Patrick O’Connor, R-Weymouth.
Prohibit recording or broadcasting while driving (H 3748)
A bill that would prohibit the operator of a vehicle from recording, broadcasting or otherwise capturing images or video of themselves while driving, is stuck in the Bills in Third Reading Committee. The measure was given initial approval by the House, on a voice vote, without a roll call, on Feb. 26 and has been lingering in committee for more than three months.
“I sponsored the bill because I believe it will reduce the extent of distracted driving, which unfortunately seems to be occurring more frequently, particularly with the continuous advent of new technology,” said sponsor Rep. Brian Murray, D-Milford.
Uber and Lyft drivers form a union
Rideshare drivers in Massachusetts, including Uber and Lyft, have become the first statewide rideshare union in the nation to win official recognition.
Supporters say the union, known as App Drivers Union (ADU), will create a path to negotiate better pay and job protections on behalf of nearly 70,000 rideshare drivers across the state. They note that this new union is the largest private workforce to win union recognition since the United Auto Workers did so at Ford in 1941.
“I never dreamed that this day would happen,” said Victoria Acosta, a member leader of the App Drivers Union. “I once thought it was impossible that we would have a seat at the table with these two big corporations in front of us. But nothing is impossible when you are united. For me, it is a dream come true seeing the hard work of all my colleagues collecting cards, talking to the drivers and making sure we can achieve what we dream. It was worth it because now we have our union.”
“This is one of the biggest organizing victories for labor unions in the last century,” said Autumn Weintraub, executive director of the App Drivers Union. “Big Tech spent years taking from drivers and writing the rules. Today, 70,000 Massachusetts rideshare drivers won because they wrote our own rules and won the union. Now, for the first time, the app companies have to listen to the workers who make them their money. This is not just a victory for rideshare drivers, but a warning shot to every Big Tech billionaire: Working people are united and are willing to fight for more.”