This story was originally published by The Shoestring. BINJ is collaborating with the Western Mass publication to cover this year’s extraordinary nine ballot initiatives, so be sure to follow both of us for more articles on the other questions.
When it comes to the public’s access to government records, experts consistently rank Massachusetts as one of the least transparent states in the country.
Earlier this year, the Society of Professional Journalists awarded Massachusetts its Black Hole Award — a “dishonor recognizing government entities that demonstrate a troubling lack of transparency and disregard for the public’s right to know.” It’s the only state where the Legislature, governor’s office, and judiciary all claim to be largely exempt from the public records law.
But that could soon change.
Next week, voters will decide whether to pass Question 1, a ballot initiative that would end those exemptions for the governor’s office and state lawmakers, making them subject to the same public records law that municipal officials and other agencies have long had to comply with.
The expansion of the public records law could give Massachusetts residents more insight into practices of their legislators — like what lobbyists they’re meeting with, for example, or any settlement agreements they’ve signed. Only three other states allow their lawmakers to be exempt from any public records law — one of the reasons that transparency advocates, including journalists like The Boston Globe’s Editorial Board, have endorsed Question 1.
The ballot question does contain provisions that would exempt certain Legislative and gubernatorial records from disclosure: “requests for assistance in obtaining government-provided benefits or services,” for example, and documents “relating to developing policy positions.”
However, as the current language of the measure stands, some lawmakers are suggesting that there aren’t enough exemptions to the expansion of the records law. That has led some to believe that if it passes, lawmakers will seek to address that issue and, in the process, either delay or undermine the initiative if it passes, not unlike they’ve done with another “Question 1” that passed in 2024.
State Auditor Diana Dizoglio is leading the “yes” campaign for the public-records ballot initiative. She said Question 1 would give residents access to administrative, business, and financial records from state officials. She said that it’s an effort meant to go beyond a state audit that she pushed for, and voters passed as a ballot question, two years ago. State legislative leaders have resisted that audit ever since.
“I’ve learned how the audit can play a role in increasing transparency — but it’s going to take much more than an audit,” Dizoglio said. “It’s going to take opening up the doors on Beacon Hill and letting the everyday families in our communities … actually get access to the records that they pay for directly.”
While some legislators have voiced opposition to the expansion of the public records law, no organization has formally created a “no” campaign. The secretary of the commonwealth’s voter guide, which arrived on doorsteps several weeks ago, included the opinion of several representatives opposed to the ballot measure: Sen. Brendan Crighton, Sen. Paul Feeney, and Rep. David Vieira, among others. None have responded to The Shoestring’s request for comment.
Dizologio, who’s spent $100,000 of her own campaign finances to support the measure, said the possible expansion of the records law is already being undermined because of what she described as collusion between the Senate president, House speaker, and the attorney general.
Earlier this year, both the Senate and the House began working on their own bills that would open the governor’s office to public records requests. The bills would also make some documents in the Legislature into public records, though many of those categories of records are already available on the Legislature’s website.
If passed, the bills would stipulate that records cannot be requested retroactively — only after the start of the new term in January 2027.
“It is public corruption,” Dizoglio said. “It’s violation of law and it’s willful ignorance of the electorate, which undermines our democracy and actually signals to the electorate that we are living more under an authoritarian style regime of government than in a democratic government.”
The Boston Globe’s Editorial Board also expressed concern about the legislation that the House and Senate are considering.
“Should Question 1 pass on Nov. 3, the Legislature has within its grasp the means to almost immediately overturn the wisdom of the voters by passing those bills — a scary and most undemocratic possibility.”
Speaker Karen Spilka did not respond to multiple requests for an interview. A spokesperson for the attorney general’s office said that the attorney general is in support of the measure.
Some lawmakers have questioned the constitutionality of the ballot measure. Dizoglio, though, dismissed those concerns. She said that if there were legitimate concerns about the law’s implementation, then legislators and the Office of the Attorney General could’ve taken action in the courts. (The state’s highest court did strike down one potential ballot question earlier this year, concerning rent stabilization, on a legal technicality.)
Rep. Lindsay Sabadosa, D-Northampton, told The Shoestring that she is in favor of expanding the public records law. However, she said she has some concerns — not only about the lack of exemptions, but about how the process is going to play out in the Statehouse.
According to Sabadosa, the constitutionality of the expansion depends on the way that it’s implemented. If it were to be a broad and sweeping measure, then she said she would agree with the arguments that her peers have been making against the passing of the ballot question.
As the language stands, there’s no explicit guardrails to protect things like her constituent’s emails, she alleged — records she said she doesn’t even let her staff members read. She said she wants people in her district to feel like they can reach out to her in precarious situations without risking their safety.
Dizoglio has long been in conflict with both the Legislature and the Office of the Attorney General.
Voters passed the audit ballot question with 72% of the vote in 2024. However, the implementation has been slow as lawmakers, the state auditor’s office, and the attorney general’s office argue — often exchanging personal attacks — over the parameters of the audit.
Many legislators called into question Dizoglio’s objectivity in performing an audit. They also, like the public records initiative, questioned the audit’s constitutionality.
In May, the Senate later released four of the financial documents that Dizoglio’s office requested in 2025. The House has not done so, and has instead been working on legislation centered around transparency.
Despite this, Dizoglio has allies on Beacon Hill, including Republicans like Sen. Ryan Fattman, who’s in favor of both the audit and the public records expansion.
He explained that when the House and Senate pass similar bills, legislators have conference committees to negotiate the differences. However, those meetings are “very rarely” open to the public or media, and often include only the two chairs of a given committee.
“Having rationale and reasoning behind why something is happening helps the public digest it and understand it, even if they don’t agree with it,” Fattman said. “Because there’s not a lot of transparency, people come up with conspiracies. This is a way to temper that and to create confidence in the ways laws are made, and the way that public officials do business.”
(In 2023, Fattman settled in a lawsuit for $55,000 for misusing his campaign finances years prior to fund his wife’s run for reelection as Worcester County’s register of probate — a story that WBUR first uncovered by fighting for access to public records in the court proceedings surrounding the state’s investigation of the Fattmans.)
While the ballot question would increase transparency between representatives and the public, many feel that the imbalance of power among representatives themselves remains unaddressed.
Scotia Hille, the executive director of transparency advocacy nonprofit Act on Mass, said that the passing of the ballot question would give watchdog organizations and the press more ability to hold power accountable. But it’s the first step of many to do so, Hille said.
“We still need to contend with the fact that there is such a hierarchy in our Legislature. Nothing really moves without the Speaker and Senate president’s express approval,” Hille said. “They have a tremendous amount of power over the activities of individual rank-and-file representatives — how much each of them is paid, things like that.”
The ballot measure also fails to address some of the other parts of the state’s public records law that journalists and transparency advocates have often criticized. The state supervisor of records, for example, has no ability to enforce her decisions about access to public records, forcing the public to file lawsuits if they want to fight a public-records denial.
Fattman said that there is a bigger question than just how the public records expansion is going to be implemented — one about democracy. The representative said that in politically divisive times, even in states like Massachusetts, it’s difficult to get consensus on issues. The fact that nearly three quarters of voters agreed to audit lawmakers was significant to him. But what was more significant was the lack of implementation for the audit he saw in the years after the vote.
The impact, he said, is that some voters don’t trust the Legislature to meaningfully represent them. For that reason, Fattman said he has some skepticism in the implementation of the public records expansion if it were to pass.
“We are the birthplace of freedom. Let’s not be the graveyard,” Fattman said.
