“They are interested in deliberately distorting the message and making misleading arguments to weaponize the Constitution to protect themselves,” DiZoglio said in a speech. last podcast appearance.

After DiZoglio He announced his intention to investigate With weeks left in the House and Senate’s terms, both House Speaker Ron Mariano and Senate President Karen Spilka immediately said they would not comply. They argued that any audit of their branches would violate the constitutional separation of powers, and lawmakers accused DiZoglio of having a “clear bias” regarding the audit.

Legislative leaders also argue that much of what they do is already public: Legislative hearings and committee hearings are broadcast live, and legislative roll call votes, chamber calendars and spending details are available online.

Some voters believe that’s not enough.

“What’s wrong with a little supervision?” Kiah Holmstrom, a 22-year-old Jamaica Plain resident and Brandeis University senior, said she voted in favor of Question 1. He said the Legislature is controlled by Democrats who preach the importance of having a transparent government. “So why don’t you guarantee transparency that the state will monitor this?”

Others shrugged at the question, saying they saw little harm in adding an outside perspective to the House.

“Why? Go ahead,” said Matt Ambrose, 49, of Melrose.

Even if approved by voters, the measure would not be the final word in his dispute with lawmakers. Attorney General Andrea Campbell warned last year that DiZoglio’s authority could face “constitutional limitations” even if voters approved the ballot measure. Mariano and Spilka too left the possibility open While Mariano suggested that the decision may depend on “how big the margin is,” he expressed the opinion that the proposed law should be changed or even repealed if passed.

A think tank at Tufts University noted: it’s a series of thingsEverything from lawmakers’ policy choices to committee assignments may be considered “essential legislative functions” and thus off-limits to any oversight. But even under those restrictions, the ballot measure has the potential for far-reaching impact, the Center for State Policy Analysis wrote.

“The (Auditor’s) office may move from a highly valued but low-profile position to an increasingly politicized and newly empowered position that can use the threat of audits to influence legislative behavior,” according to the report.

DiZoglio has already signaled he can test what is legally allowed. Just weeks before Tuesday’s vote, he released a 77-page report compiled by his taxpayer-funded office A statement criticizing the House and Senate for breaking their own rules and providing too little and sometimes late financial information.

DiZoglio’s office called the review a “performance audit” but devoted a large portion of his report to highlighting information he did not have: The Legislature did not comply with requests for interviews or data, leaving him to rely solely on publicly available information. As a result, the report offered no conclusions on a range of questions, including whether the Legislature adhered to a “fair style of lawmaking” or how it handled so-called majority bills co-sponsored by a majority of legislators.

DiZoglio later said that if the ballot measure passed, he would “revisit” those areas and others under his newfound authority.

The ballot measure drew support from both sides of the political spectrum. Democratic including activists as well as groups Progressive Massachusetts and Our Revolution Massachusetts all supported oversight of the Legislature.

The Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance, a conservative-leaning nonprofit, helped get the issue on the ballot, and its founder, Rick Green, donated $10,000 to the campaign behind the ballot measure. Automobile sales magnate Ernie Boch Jr. An organization with ties to. supported prominent RepublicansCampaign finance records show he spent $75,000 on the effort.

The campaign had raised nearly $440,000 as of Tuesday; DiZoglio’s own campaign account donated $105,000; this was the largest contributor.

The campaign published a digital advertising Last week there was an article depicting legislative leaders as secretive creatures of Beacon Hill, at one point asking, “Seriously, what the hell are they hiding?”

The ad also claimed that the judiciary and the governor’s office were also audited, but the judicial branch, like the legislature, was not specifically included among the institutions under the auditor’s supervision. Campbell, the state attorney general, also told DiZoglio last year that the judiciary had complied with past audits but had done so “voluntarily” and that officials there had also “raised constitutional concerns” about the auditor’s office’s claim. The authority to audit the other branch.

Still, the ballot measure faced little or no official opposition on the campaign trail and was often popular among voters in the popular vote. While lawmakers publicly opposed the proposal, neither Mariano nor Spilka organized a campaign to raise money or run ads against the ballot question.

Still, it sparked fierce criticism. After DiZoglio released his review of the Legislature last month, Mariano accused him of “using his office for pure political self-promotion” and said he should instead focus on “legally mandated reviews.” State law requires the auditor to audit each entity under the office’s supervision at least once every three years. DiZoglio And predecessors We often had difficulty keeping up.

“To have state sources, using state money, defend your position on a ballot question that you helped craft raises some real questions about the auditor’s role and his seriousness,” Mariano later told reporters.

Some voters had their own concerns about giving DiZoglio that power. Alan Brav, a 65-year-old Middleton Democrat, said outside his polling place Tuesday that he knew Spilka personally through his ex-wife and celebrated the holidays at her home in Ashland.

He said he was wary of breaches of constitutional safeguards between branches and noted that each chamber currently has an annual financial audit.

“What is the problem we are solving here?” said software design engineer Brav. “I don’t think (legislators) are out of control.”

Matt Stout can be reached at [email protected]. follow him @mattpstout.