DiZoglio spars with state lawmakers over public records reform

Massachusetts State Auditor Diana DiZoglio and a group of state lawmakers sparred Tuesday during a heated hearing on a potential ballot question that would expand the public records law to cover the Legislature and governor’s office.

The meeting at the State House laid bare the acrimony between former legislator DiZoglio and her one-time colleagues. The hearing was the first in a series on the 11 proposed ballot questions advancing toward the November election.

In one exchange, Sen. Barry Finegold, an Andover Democrat, asked DiZoglio if the public records ballot question would allow the Trump administration to request conversations about funding cuts between local lawmakers and universities.

The ballot question exempts from public records communications between a lawmaker and a constituent that are “reasonably” related to a constituent’s request for assistance in obtaining government-provided benefits or services or “otherwise interacting with a state or federal agency.”

But Finegold said universities are “not technically a constituent.”

“And I guess my question is, would the Trump administration have access to these conversations?” the Andover Democrat said to DiZoglio.

The auditor immediately shot back at Finegold, saying the question doesn't have "anything to do" with the Trump administration.

“I know that's normally the play for a lot of people when tough conversations come up,” DiZoglio said. “But I would say to you, this is about making public records accessible.”

Finegold then pressed DiZoglio to “answer the question.”

“Can you answer the question?" he asked. "I asked you a question, so can you give me the respect of answering the question?”

The two went back and forth for a few minutes over the issue before DiZoglio criticized Finegold.

“Senator, I find it disgraceful that you're trying to tie public records reform to the Trump administration right now, and I think that you should be ashamed of yourself. That's my response,” DiZoglio said before turning the microphone to a ballot question campaign official.

Jesse Littlewood, the campaign manager of the public records ballot question, said records from the Legislature and the governor’s office are “more or less” assumed to be public under the proposal unless they fall within one of the exemptions already in state law or added through the measure.

DiZoglio then turned back to Finegold to say she found it “incredibly sad and disappointing” that Finegold was “only” raising concerns about privacy when it affected state lawmakers.

“I find it to be very opportunistic to try to drag in the Trump administration to a conversation about public records reform,” she said.

Sen. Cindy Friedman, an Arlington Democrat who was overseeing the hearing, immediately banged her gavel.

“I would like to avoid — this committee has a standard of not attacking, of not personal,” she said before DiZoglio cut in.

“Oh, did I say something personal?” DiZoglio said.

Friedman quickly asked DiZoglio to “stick to the question, to the topic at hand.”

In a phone call after the hearing, Finegold said he just wanted an answer to his question about conversations with universities.

“I was unsure whether something like this would be protected," he said, adding that universities would be less likely to speak with him if their conversations were part of the public record.

DiZoglio said she was frustrated that Finegold invoked Trump.

“I have gotten incredibly frustrated with legislators who, every time transparency gets brought up, shift the focus back to the federal administration, because we're not talking about the federal administration right now,” she told reporters after the hearing.

DiZoglio has long had a rocky relationship with state lawmakers dating back to her time in the state Senate and House of Representatives. Her efforts to audit the Legislature after voters approved a different ballot question in 2024 — and lawmakers' refusal to participate in the investigation — have inflamed those tensions.

In another tense exchange Tuesday, Friedman again banged her gavel and cut into a back-and-forth between DiZoglio and Sen. Paul Feeney of Foxborough over Feeney’s concerns that constituents’ messages to lawmakers would be subject to the public records law.

“You are asked to answer the questions. If you don't understand the question, you can clarify that. But you are here to answer the question,” Friedman said to DiZoglio. “Please don't accuse us through your words or your tone that we are doing anything but trying to understand what you have written.”

A few minutes later, DiZoglio pushed back against state senators.

She pointed to an August 2025 letter from the Senate’s top lawyer to Attorney General Andrea Campbell in which the Senate’s lawyer asked Campbell to block the public records ballot question from being certified.

DiZoglio said the letter shows the “Senate is already documented as having opposed this.”

“Sorry, not sorry about my tone,” DiZoglio said. “You've already been on the record opposing this. So why waste everybody's time and money and resources coming today to talk about a decision you've already made?”

A spokesperson for Senate President Karen Spilka said the letter was submitted at the invitation of the attorney general, who had asked those with legal interest in the ballot question to weigh in.

At one point in the hearing, Friedman said she did not know about the letter’s existence.

“I would just speak, I think, for all of the Senate, we are unaware of the letter that you are speaking about,” she said.