‘Fish or cut bait’: SJC urges DiZoglio, AG Campbell to make progress on legislative audit battle (original) (raw)

The SJC wants closure on the stalemate over a voter-approved audit of the state Legislature.

The court heard oral arguments on Wednesday on the years-long legal battle over whether state Auditor Diana DiZoglio can carry out an audit.

The SJC urged both the attorney general and auditor’s offices to make progress in the ongoing legal dispute, specifically discussing Attorney General Andrea Campbell’s motion to dismiss DiZoglio’s February lawsuit against Senate President Karen Spilka, House Speaker Ron Mariano and their respective clerks.

DiZoglio filed the lawsuit after Campbell refused to represent her office in court against legislative leadership while also denying DiZoglio’s request to hire outside counsel.

Justice Gabrielle Wolohojian — appointed to the SJC in 2024 by Gov. Maura Healey despite a years-long romantic relationship with the governor — suggested the high court order deadlines for DiZoglio to answer questions the Attorney General’s Office has regarding the scope and process of the audit, to which Campbell would be required to decide on whether to represent DiZoglio or allow the lawsuit to move forward.

“Perhaps, would it not make more sense, given how the correspondence has gone so far, and I think we’ve probably all dealt with clients with whom there’s a communications breakdown, that maybe the AG identify what it would be willing to proceed with rather than continuing to ask the same questions and continuing to get the same kinds of responses where there doesn’t seem to be any,” Justice Wolohojian said.

“To think that an order might be useful if we’re just going to repeat the same cycle of unproductive communications. It seems to me, perhaps, that a deadline would have to be set by which the attorney general would fish or cut bait, to use a common phrase,” she said.

The AG’s office said that about 30 days would be an appropriate amount of time.

Wolohojian’s suggestion was supported by Justices Scott Kafker and Dalila Wendlandt, who both pointed out several times at the hearing the amount of time the dispute over the legislative audit has been dragged out for, noting the “extreme public interest” that it be resolved.

The justices also expressed their desire to get to the bottom of the questions regarding the proposed audit’s constitutionality and the process by which it would be carried out.

Attorney Shannon Liss-Reardon, who is representing DiZoglio, said the auditor’s office would not object to an order like the one suggested by Wolohojian.

“The state auditor would welcome a definitive answer from the attorney general so we can all know how to proceed,” Liss-Reardon said.

The justices adjourned the hearing without a final decision being made or issuing a specific order to either party.