Why Massachusetts House Speaker opposes Diana DiZoglio's attempt to audit legislature
Massachusetts House Speaker Ron Mariano (D-Quincy) said he is "worried" about the situation in Washington, D.C. and the effects it could have on Massachusetts if federal funding is cut. He also defended local lawmakers' resistance to State Auditor Diana DiZoglio's efforts to audit the legislature.
How losing federal funding could impact Massachusetts
Mariano has been around the track a few times in his long career as a teacher, school committeeman and legislator. He's hard to startle. But as he surveys the scene in Washington and its potential impact on Massachusetts, "I am worried," he said during an interview with WBZ-TV.
"It's hard to have any idea how this thing is going to play out. I just know that we rely on our federal partner for about $15 billion coming into the state over the course of the year in a myriad of programs. So if that's cut significantly, then we are in a difficult position," he said.
Ron Mariano on audit opposition
But there's another challenge being confronted these days by Mariano and his fellow legislators. DiZoglio is scorching for their resistance to her proposed audit of the legislature, a right she was granted by the voters when they overwhelmingly approved Question One on the November 2024 ballot.
In a tweet last week after the House rejected a Republican effort to accept DiZoglio's audit plan, the auditor accused Mariano and his "henchman" Majority Leader Mike Moran of working to "continue to hide whatever it is they do with your taxpayer dollars."
"It's very inflammatory, and it's kind of a nonsensical response to the activities that happen in the legislative debate," Mariano said. "We have an honest disagreement, an honest difference of opinion. We think there are constitutional issues involved in the separation of powers and what she wants to do and what that valid question allows her to do. And that's the way she deals with disagreements, I guess, is…tweet."
Meanwhile, the House last week approved new rules that Mariano cast as partly a response to the public frustration with the slow pace of legislative activity that was reflected in the Question One vote. In an effort to end the bi-annual logjams where important bills don't get passed by the session's end, "we've set a rolling deadline for the committees," said Mariano.
"They get 60 days to hear a bill and move it. We want it out in the membership. We want, the chairman to take a more active part in determining what's going to be in the agenda, and we're hoping that this …will force us to deal with these issues before they stack up and we have to combine them," Mariano said. "We hope it will make us more efficient. We've opened up the process. We're going to include our votes. We're going to include our attendance. We want people to know who's at the hearing, how they're voting. We want to open that up, and we want to process these bills before we feel the crunch of the time coming to an end."
Mariano also discussed recent concerns about potential conflicts of interest in House committee leadership during the interview, which can be viewed in its entirety here.
Join WBZ-TV Sunday, March 9, when Auditor DiZoglio is our guest on the weekend edition of "Keller At Large."
