{"id":15953,"date":"2025-10-25T07:05:25","date_gmt":"2025-10-25T07:05:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/15953\/"},"modified":"2025-10-25T07:05:25","modified_gmt":"2025-10-25T07:05:25","slug":"ags-defiance-deserves-a-no-queens-rally","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/15953\/","title":{"rendered":"AG’s defiance deserves a ‘No Queens’ rally"},"content":{"rendered":"

State Auditor Diana DiZoglio believes that Attorney General Andrea Campbell is a threat to democracy in Massachusetts.<\/p>\n

Not on the scale of \u201cNo Kings\u201d President Donald Trump, of course.<\/p>\n

But authoritarian enough to block the will of the voters who, in the name of transparency and accountability, voted overwhelmingly to authorize DiZoglio to audit the Massachusetts Legislature.<\/p>\n

Thanks to Campbell, it has yet to happen, despite the voters approving the measure in 2024 by a huge margin of 2,282,333 votes, or 72%, in favor, and 906,034 votes, or 28%, against.<\/p>\n

The voters spoke in such a clear and commanding fashion that people figured it was only a matter of time before the Democrat controlled Legislature would be compelled to open its books to Auditor DiZoglio like all other state agencies do.<\/p>\n

They figured wrong.<\/p>\n

Campbell\u2019s authoritarian stand on the issue is almost enough to stir up a \u201cNo Queens\u201d rally.<\/p>\n

No sooner did the measure pass than House Speaker Ron Mariano and Senate President Karen Spilka circled the wagons to oppose its implementation.<\/p>\n

They argued that it was unconstitutional for the executive branch of government, the auditor, to infringe on the separate legislative branch, the Legislature, and that the Legislature audited its own books anyway.<\/p>\n

The next step was for DiZoglio to sue the Legislature to compel it to cooperate. To do so, however, she needs the attorney general to represent her in court.<\/p>\n

But Campbell, who has bragged about filing 40 lawsuits against President Trump, has declined to do so, thereby siding with the Legislature and against the voting public.<\/p>\n

When DiZoglio proposed hiring an outside law firm to represent her in court, Campbell opposed that, too.<\/p>\n

Campbell, who announced her candidacy for reelection last week, has claimed that DiZoglio has not provided her with enough information to proceed to the courts, which DiZoglio hotly denies.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you can sue Trump, you can sue the Legislature,\u201d DiZoglio said. \u201cBy not doing so, she is denying the will of the people. It\u2019s an obstruction of justice.\u201d<\/p>\n

In return for blocking DiZoglio and siding with the Legislature, the Democrat controlled Legislature increased Campbell\u2019s budget by more than $7 million, money that Campbell will use \u2014 not to represent DiZoglio \u2014 but to file 40 more lawsuits against Trump.<\/p>\n

DiZoglio calls this collusion, if not an outright conspiracy. \u201cThe attorney general is getting millions more while other budgets are being cut,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Ordinarily, progressives would be critical of Campbell for not supporting DiZoglio on the issue of transparency, accountability, and shedding light on the Legislature. Not so.<\/p>\n

Campbell has been able to overshadow any progressive criticism of her over the issue because progressives are wholly impressed by her \u201cstanding up\u201d to Trump.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey (Trump) will keep on coming and we will keep on fighting,\u201d Campbell said at last Saturday\u2019s No Kings rally on Boston Common.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf they come for Massachusetts, I say bring it on. We don\u2019t back down. We are just getting started.\u201d<\/p>\n

Campbell, who voted for the audit question when it was on the ballot, is now backing down and obstructing its implementation.<\/p>\n

She must figure that Trump is behind it.<\/p>\n

Suing Trump is easy. Everybody does it.<\/p>\n

But she finds that taking on the Legislature is hard, even if the people voted for it.<\/p>\n

Veteran political reporter Peter Lucas can be reached at: peter.lucas@bostonherald.com<\/p>\n

\"ProtestersProtesters against the Trump administration gather on the Boston Common last weekend for a “No Kings” rally. (Mark Stockwell\/Boston Herald)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"State Auditor Diana DiZoglio believes that Attorney General Andrea Campbell is a threat to democracy in Massachusetts. Not…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":15954,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[11536,11537,85,11538,11539,11540,86,9,24,12,63,299,11542,11541,87,122,124,123],"class_list":{"0":"post-15953","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-queens","8":"tag-andrea-campbell","9":"tag-diana-dizoglio","10":"tag-latest-headlines","11":"tag-legislature","12":"tag-massachusetts","13":"tag-massachusetts-legislature","14":"tag-national-politics","15":"tag-new-york","16":"tag-new-york-city","17":"tag-news","18":"tag-nyc","19":"tag-opinion","20":"tag-opinion-columnists","21":"tag-peter-lucas","22":"tag-politics","23":"tag-queens","24":"tag-queens-headlines","25":"tag-queens-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15953","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15953"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15953\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15954"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15953"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15953"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15953"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}