Good evening,
As you might have guessed from our mid-week action alerts, it was a busy week at Act on Mass! With less than 24 hours notice and no public process, House reps passed a bogus "transparency" bill that would gut the legislative audit. We're still mobilizing, so we're starting things off right away with a "vol call" from Isabel.
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Isabel's Vol Call
Happy Saturday, Scoop Readers!
Last weekend I, and our two wonderful interns Oscar and Lily, tabled at the Massachusetts Democratic Convention. It was so great to get to meet some of you in-person! We were also lucky enough to share a table with State Auditor Diana DiZoglio. While passing out her “Where the Hell Is My Audit?” t-shirts, we spoke with lots of folks who are shocked and frustrated by the blatant refusal of the legislature to comply with the audit as requested.
Well, we feel the same! This Tuesday from 10-10:30a.m. Act on Mass is hosting a virtual phonebank where we will be calling our State Senators and telling them to vote no on the Senate version of H.5469. Thanks to a public roll call vote, we also know which House members voted for and against this bill. So, after calling our Senators we will be calling House members to either thank them for their stance on this issue or let them know that we are concerned with the loopholes and bad process they voted in favor of last Wednesday.
JOIN AOM TO PHONEBANK REPS ON TUESDAY!>>
If you can’t make it on June 9th you can use our sample script here, or use our form to email your Senator.
TELL YOUR SENATOR: NO TO H.5469>>
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State House Scoop
We’re still catching up from the rapid mobilization we had to do this week around H.5469, the House’s surprise “transparency” bill to alter the voter-backed audit and create a new “legislative records” regime just for the Legislature.
Just three Democrats voted against this sudden and secretive reversal of the will of the voters: Rep. Mike Connolly, Rep. James Hawkins, and Rep. Alan Silvia, along with all House Republicans. If these are your representatives, be sure to thank them. Find the final vote on the Legislature’s website here.
There’s a lot to say about this bill and the shameful process that allowed it to move to passage in just 24 hours with no public process. For a quick breakdown of our main concerns with the bill, read our action alert from this week. For this Scoop, we’re going to dig a little deeper.
After years of claiming "unconstitutional," why are legislators so determined to avoid SJC ruling on audit?
Since the day 72% of Massachusetts voters voted to apply the audit function to the state legislature, legislative leaders have claimed that it’s unconstitutional. Their argument is based on an untested “separation of powers” theory, which claims that the auditor (executive branch, though elected separately from the governor) performing an audit of the legislature would be exercising an “inherent function” of the legislature (legislative branch). Some legal experts agree with that theory. Notably, some don’t.
As luck would have it, the founders of our constitutional democracy foresaw a situation in which people would disagree about what the constitution said. Forgive me for the civics review, but that’s why we have a third, co-equal branch of government: the judicial branch. The state’s highest court, the Supreme Judicial court (SJC), is the only entity in the state empowered to rule on our state’s constitution.
The auditor has been trying to get a ruling from the SJC on the audit since January 2025, but has been unable to secure legal representation due to stalling by AG Campbell. Just two weeks ago, the auditor’s petition to secure legal counsel succeeded, allowing a lawsuit to proceed. It seemed like the SJC would finally get the chance to hear arguments about the audit.
Not so fast. As we wrote last week, “we learned that the State Senate would rather fold than risk a ruling from the SJC on the audit's constitutionality.” In an apparent attempt to head off the lawsuit, senators voted to simply comply and release the documents that DiZoglio sought in the lawsuit.
The House bill passed this week, H.5469, appears to be an even more extreme version of the same tactic. It would explicitly strip court oversight over disputes relating to the audit, stating: "no court shall have jurisdiction to compel the production of records to enforce any interview request or to adjudicate any dispute arising under an audit." Put differently, the House is trying to make sure we never get a court ruling on any case relating to the audit.
And 125 reps went along with it. For those that didn’t, this issue was of major concern. Here’s Rep. Mike Connolly, explaining his “no” vote: "Ultimately, in our system of government, it's the judicial branch that draws constitutional lines… I felt comfortable allowing the Supreme Judicial Court to review the constitutionality of the past ballot question and to weigh in on where to draw the lines, and so it just doesn't sit well with me that after 18 to 20 months of pointing to the Constitution as soon as the auditor wins her day in court, it seems like we're pulling the rug out from under her.”
As advocates pushing to make sure the voices of constituents are heard in the lawmaking process, we are outraged that our state reps would vote to overturn the will of the voters. As transparency advocates who call out the lack of transparency in our legislature, we are frustrated that legislative leaders rammed this bill through with less than 24 hours notice, with no public process. As organizers who know that contested elections are a major accountability tool, we are disappointed (but not surprised) that legislators waited until after the May 26 deadline for state rep candidates to vote this through.
We’re also curious. If legislative leaders are so confident about their “separation of powers” theory against the audit, why are they taking such great lengths to ensure that the SJC never considers it? The public and the Auditor have a deeply vested interest in determining the constitutionality of the audit. It seems like the only reluctant party is the Legislature.
Not the last on H.5469
We have a lot more to unpack from this bill. For one, the role of House Republicans in this vote. Minority leader Brad Jones called the bill a “shit sandwich with extra pickles” and accused the Democratic leaders of acting “like a monarchy.” Yet, he agreed to withdraw all of his amendments without forcing any roll call votes—one of the only tools available to the minority party. What backroom dealing took place to spare his Democratic colleagues additional votes on this issue?
We also have more thoughts on the "legislative records" provision in this bill, which legislators are touting as an alternative to the ballot question to subject the legislature and governor's office to public records law.
In the coming weeks, we might do some additional Scoops digging into this bill and its perfect encapsulation of the problems of transparency and concentration of power in our state house. In the meantime, as Isabel noted in the intro, we’re still mobilizing. Thanks to public outcry, reps are on the defensive on this issue. You may be hearing some of the following arguments from your state reps:
- “The auditor finally agreed to limit the scope of her audit, this bill simply codifies that.”
- “This bill is necessary to end the drawn-out legal dispute / constitutional stalemate around the audit.”
- “The legislature is already audited!”
- “This bill is necessary to allow an audit without risking the Constitution.”
Most of these arguments are misleading at best. We put together a toolkit to contextualize some of these claims and debunk some of the misinformation involved, to help you talk to your state rep and your neighbors about this issue with confidence. Please access this and feel free to share it!
And, of course, if you want to hear from the Auditor directly about her response to this bill and how it will shape the audit approved by voters, join us tomorrow from 2-4 pm in Concord! It’s just the right week to gather together, celebrate our democracy, and listen to some good music. Sign up today!
JOIN AOM AND THE AUDITOR TOMORROW IN CONCORD!>>
CAN'T COME, BUT I'LL SUPPORT THE FUNDRAISER!>>
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Note: correction from last week's Scoop
Last week's "Lily's Lowdown: As municipalities feel the squeeze, Fair Share Amendment rakes in cash for the Commonwealth" included a significant typo that may have led to some misconceptions about the Fair Share Amendment. The new surtax has generated $3.1 BILLION so far this fiscal year, not $3.1 million. We have also corrected some of the details about the use of Fair Share funds. You can read the corrected Lowdown at this link.
We value feedback from our readers! If you catch a mistake or have other feedback on our Scoops, please email us at admin@actonmass.org.
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Lily's Lowdown: Legislative inaction impacts children's digital safety
A little less than two years ago, Massachusetts became the 49th state in the country to ban revenge porn, or the distribution of sexually explicit material without consent. Revenge porn, or non-consensual dissemination of intimate images (NCII), is a form of image-based abuse that has been on the rise in recent years with the advent of “deepfakes” and AI-generated images.
Now, however, with the rapidly-changing landscape of AI, a new heinous threat is coming into view—the circulation of explicit, AI-generated images of children. Reporting from the Boston Globe tells the story of a Massachusetts mother whose boyfriend was secretly generating obscene AI images of her teenaged daughter. When she found the images of her daughter’s face photoshopped onto the nude body of a woman. The boyfriend told his therapist about the image, who reported it to the Department of Children and Families (DCF). The woman, Ann (pseudonym), went to the police, the district attorney’s office, and filed her own report with DCF.
Unfortunately, Massachusetts is one of just five states that has yet to extend laws outlawing child pornagraphy to include AI-generated images of children. Ann’s efforts ended in dead ends. Although there is a bill—An Act to enhance protections against child exploitation and misuse of emerging technologies (H.1931)—to correct this gaping discrepancy (which is, by the way, collecting dust in a study order as we speak), it’s still the latest in the litany of issues the State House has ignored despite their pressing urgency.
Although it’s often easy to brush off the Legislature’s unproductivity in an “at-least-we-don’t-live-in-a-red-state” kind of way, it’s clear from the legislature’s failure to act on AI-generated child sexual abuse material that the State House’s inertia has real consequences that harm real people.
Even though the Healey Administration has lauded the potential for AI prosperity, they’ve conveniently glossed over the complexity of its rapidly-changing landscape. And coupled with the legislature’s reluctance to do anything—even protecting children from the unspeakable—is cast aside in favor of maintaining the status quo.
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Missed a Scoop or two? You can find a full archive of all past Saturday Scoops on our blog.
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Take action
Join AOM for a spring fundraiser! - June 7th, 2 - 4 pm in Concord
Join Act on Mass, Concord Indivisble, and Indivisble Acton Area for our musical spring fundraiser, featuring Auditor Diana DiZoglio!
SING WITH THE AUDITOR ON 6/7>>
PHONEBANK: Call your legislators about H.5469! - Tuesday, 10 - 10:30 am
Join Act on Mass for a quick virtual phonebook to call our legislators about H.5469! We'll meet on Zoom to go over some background on the bill and then call our reps.
JOIN AOM TO PHONEBANK REPS ON TUESDAY!>>
BOSTON, BELMONT, CAMBRIDGE, & WATERTOWN - State senate forum on transparency! - June 10th, 7:30 PM 
June 10th at 7:30 pm - Join Act on Mass and allies in Cambridge for a candidate forum featuring two candidates for state senate of the Suffolk & Middlesex District, Senator Will Brownsberger and Daniel Lander, focused on questions of transparency and accountability in the state legislature.
If you're interested in hosting a transparency and accountability forum in your district, send us an email at info@actonmass.org!
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Thanks for reading and for taking action! We'll be back next week!
In solidarity,
Scotia
Scotia Hille (she/her)
Executive Director, Act on Mass