Colin A. Young
State House News Service

Attorney General Andrea Campbell's office moved last week to strike Auditor Diana DiZoglio's lawsuit against legislative leaders, arguing that her office is the only legal "gatekeeper" that decides if or when disputes between branches of government require the court's involvement.

DiZoglio brought the long-simmering issue to the state's highest court this month by asking a single Supreme Judicial Court justice to grant her permission to hire her own legal representation through the appointment of a special assistant attorney general. Top lawmakers continue to oppose the audit over constitutional concerns and Campbell maintains that her office hasn't received sufficient information from DiZoglio to represent her in a suit against the Legislature. 

Justice Dalila Argaez Wendlandt on Friday allowed Campbell's office to intervene in DiZoglio's suit as a defendant alongside House Speaker Ron Mariano, Senate President Karen Spilka, and the House and Senate clerks, according to court records. Campbell's office also filed a motion last week to strike DiZoglio's complaint, and that remains under the justice's advisement.

"By statute, the Attorney General is a gatekeeper empowered to determine when, if ever, the Commonwealth’s intragovernmental legal disputes require judicial resolution. ... There would be no gate at all were mere disagreement with the Attorney General sufficient basis for a dissenting state official to initiate a lawsuit. Were such suits permissible, the Commonwealth, which has heretofore spoken with one voice in litigation, would be rendered a babel of voices with competing interests, many on the docket of this Court," Campbell's office wrote. "That result has been disapproved by this court before and should not be countenanced now, even to the extent it may preclude recourse to the courts by a state official. That is especially so where, as the AGO has repeatedly emphasized, constructive engagement with our office may ultimately allow the Auditor a path to authorized litigation."

Court records show Campbell's office also plans to represent Mariano, Spilka and the House and Senate clerks against DiZoglio's lawsuit. Assistant Attorney General Anne Sterman filed an appearance on behalf of each of the named defendants and lodged the House and Senate's official responses to DiZoglio's court filing.

Those responses say each branch of the Legislature "concurs with the arguments set forth by proposed intervenor the Attorney General in her Motion to Strike, and for the reasons stated therein, does not believe this matter is appropriately before the Court."

Asked for a response to Campbell's intervention in her lawsuit, DiZoglio said she was "being blocked from the courts by a hostile Attorney General whose office is fighting against us, quite literally, on behalf of the Speaker and Senate President."

"AG Campbell has abdicated her duty to defend the public interest and the law — which 72% of the voters mandated. The people deserve an answer from the courts and it’s insane to witness how far AG Campbell has gone to obstruct and deny our access to justice," the auditor said in a statement to the News Service on Monday. 

She continued, "We are absolutely fighting back and are preparing a request for the courts to intervene by appointing a Special Assistant Attorney General since AG Campbell has taken an adversarial posture — creating a conflict for herself by choosing to represent the Speaker and Senate President against our office in court."

In its filing, Campbell's office says that DiZoglio's lawsuit implicates the rarely-litigated issue of legislative privilege – an issue the high court touched upon for the first time in 217 years when it struck down an appeal from former Sen. Dean Tran in connection to state ethics law violations.

"The issue plainly is quite important to the Legislature, which is the only branch of government whose individual members are expressly granted a privilege by the Massachusetts Constitution," Campbell's office points out. 

In a September 2025 letter to DiZoglio's office that was included in Campbell's filling, the AG's office said the scope of legislative privilege also affects its authority, and that of the state's district attorneys, the Ethics Commission and the Office of Campaign and Political Finance.

"How the [Office of the State Auditor] litigates against the Legislature, therefore, will affect considerably the operation of different parts of state government," First Assistant Attorney General Patrick Moore wrote. "It seems to us, after lengthy exchanges over the past months, that the OSA is reluctant to share its understanding of how the legislative privilege affects its work because any reasonable construction of that privilege complicates the OSA’s prior stated intent to compel documents and issue reports concerning the legislative process and committee and leadership appointments."

In an October 2025 letter to Campbell, DiZoglio contended that the "scope of our audit and the related records request do not conflict with any constitutional principles of our Commonwealth" and that neither one "violates or otherwise endangers the General Court’s freedoms ... or the separation of powers doctrine."

"We are auditing the General Court’s administrative functions, not its legislative functions. Our review of budgetary, financial, and contractual records does not constitute an exercise of the General Court’s legislative powers by my office in violation of Mass. Const. Pt. I art. 30," DiZoglio wrote.

In a Jan. 26 letter that DiZoglio's general counsel Michael Leung-Tat sent to Moore, he said that Campbell's office raised the issue of legislative privilege for the first time in October and it "can only be viewed as a red herring and irrelevant hypothetical that is unrelated to the issues that are the subject of our audit and dispute with the General Court."

"My office has repeatedly stated — and indeed, your office has acknowledged — that the audit and associated requests only pertain to taxpayer-funded administrative and financial activities and records, which would not and cannot infringe on any applicable privilege under Massachusetts General Laws and the Constitution," Leung-Tat wrote.