It’s Time for Legislative Leaders to Accept the Will of the Voters

The Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance (MassFiscal) and Act on Mass, key advocacy non-profit organizations focused on government accountability, offered a joint statement urging lawmakers to accept the results of Ballot Question 1 to audit the legislature. Although often on opposite ends of the political spectrum, MassFiscal and Act on Mass firmly agree on bringing more transparency and accountability to the broken legislative process. Both organizations supported the ballot question effort, and it went on to have the largest victory of any ballot question this cycle.

According to Associated Press results, every municipality in the state voted Yes on 1, with 72% of voters in favor statewide, sending a resounding landslide victory. Now, Speaker Ron Mariano and Senate President Karen Spilka are slow-walking adoption of the ballot question and discussing potential “changes” to it in closed-door leadership meetings. MassFiscal and Act on Mass are both launching campaigns to urge constituents to contact their lawmakers to allow the will of the voters to prevail for the state auditor to audit the legislature.

“Since day one, MassFiscal has been willing to work with the state auditor and her allies to see to it that more transparency and accountability are brought to the broken legislative process. We are now happy to support efforts to ensure the will of the voters are not ignored by legislative leaders who prefer to deny the results of the election and disenfranchise their own voters. MassFiscal is launching a new campaign to encourage legislative leaders to accept the will of the voters,” stated Paul Diego Craney, spokesperson for Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance.

“Massachusetts voters were extremely clear last week: by enormous margins, they voted to authorize the auditor to conduct a legislative audit. This was not a vote to allow legislative leaders to decide the kind of scrutiny they want to be subject to,” said Act on Mass executive director Scotia Hille. “That we now must double our efforts to ensure that this widely popular change be implemented illustrates exactly why the audit is so needed: if our state leaders are willing to publicly ignore the will of the voters, what might they be doing behind closed doors? Act on Mass is proud to support efforts to ensure that Question 1 is implemented as the voters approved it– with no changes.”