BOSTON (SHNS) – The Massachusetts House “voted to undermine the text” of the new voter law giving the state auditor the authority to audit the state Legislature, according to a new lawsuit filed in Suffolk Superior Court that seeks to invalidate a recently adopted House rule and declare the new law constitutional.
The suit filed Friday afternoon by former state Rep. James Lyons asserts that a House vote on Nov. 14, less than two weeks after the overwhelming passage of Question 1, offered “half-a-loaf” to Auditor Diana DiZoglio with a new rule that “does not allow the Auditor to audit the Legislature.” The rule passed on a 135-10 vote.
The new law states that the state auditor “shall audit the accounts, programs, activities and functions” of the Legislature. It states further that the auditor’s office “shall have access to such accounts at reasonable times and the department may require the production of books, documents, vouchers and other records relating to any matter within the scoop of an audit conducted under this section, or section 13, except tax returns.”