Globe endorsement: Yes on Question 1

“This is a path forward to transparency and accountability,” State Auditor Diana DiZoglio told the editorial board. “It will help build public trust and allow greater public access and accountability.”

DiZoglio campaigned for the auditor’s office in part on her intention to audit the Legislature, where she served for more than a decade. But a Legislature that has exempted itself from public records law and open meeting law was hardly going to access to open its books and records willingly.

In fact, the Legislature has maintained a right not to be audited going back to the 1990s, when then-Speaker Charles Flaherty (later to plead guilty to federal tax evasion charges) was feuding with then-Auditor Joe DeNucci, who insisted he had the authority to audit the Legislature — as he did any of the other “departments, offices, commissions, institutions, and activities of the Commonwealth.” He asked for an opinion from then-Attorney General Scott Harshbarger.

Assistant Attorney General Peter Sacks, now an Appeals Court judge, wrote back to DeNucci with some good news and some bad news. The bad news: It seemed unlikely, he said, that the Legislature intended to subject itself to the auditor’s purview when it drafted the law outlining that office’s responsibilities.

But laws can be changed, as long as they don’t violate the state constitution. And Sacks did clarify that there would be no significant “separation of powers objection to a statute clearly authorizing you to audit the Legislature’s accounts,” clearing the way for DeNucci to pursue a change in the law.

Not surprisingly, though, the Legislature didn’t go along with the idea.

Which is why, nearly three decades later, DiZoglio sought to put the issue to voters instead. Echoing Sacks, Attorney General Andrea Campbell agreed in a letter that “under current law the State Auditor does not have such authority” to audit the Legislature — but she allowed DiZoglio’s effort to put the question on the ballot.

While DiZoglio has indeed found numerous pre-1990s audits performed by the state auditor of legislative accounts, the real question is what would a modern performance audit of the Legislature, done under principles established by the federal Government Accountability Office — as DiZoglio pledges they will be — look like?

Surely it will be more enlightening than the bare bones balance sheets produced by independent auditors that legislative leaders keep touting as the be-all and end-all of financial transparency.

A performance audit could, of course, look at nondisclosure agreements and whether they were legally signed — something her auditors did recently at the Massachusetts Convention Center Authority. It could look at procurement processes for goods and services and how funds are handled.

“This is an audit, not an FBI investigation,” DiZoglio insisted. “We want to make government work better and shine a light on some of the darker processes and procedures,” not interfere with the core functions of the Legislature.

And like most audits, she added, it could end with a list of “best practices” for doing things better — whether legislative leaders implement those practices will be their decision.

Should the auditor overstep the new authority she would be granted under the law, there will be no shortage of powerful people waiting to haul her into court. As the attorney general warned last year in his letter to DiZoglio, “Should the initiative become law, we may need to consider whether constitutional limitations affect how the law would apply.”

As Jerold Duquette, a professor of political science at Central Connecticut State University and an opponent of the ballot question, told the editorial board, “The likely scenario is that the Legislature would continue to operate under their prerogatives,” and that would be likely to land the matter of the auditor’s powers before the court.

Of course, even if Question 1 passes and the courts uphold it, the Legislature could still reverse the new law, Duquette said, citing the precedent of the voter-approved 1998 Clean Elections Law. In that instance, after the ruler refused to appropriate money to fund the law, a justice of the Supreme Judicial Court ordered the auctioning off of the office furniture of legislative leaders. The Legislature responded by simply repealing the law in 2003 — apparently with little in the way of political consequences for legislative leaders.

But even in a virtually one-party state, legislators would have to at least think twice before thumbing their nose at voters like that.

For too long this Legislature has been allowed to skirt too many laws aimed at opening up its processes to the public, allowing it to escape public scrutiny and even damaging its own credibility. This ballot measure would provide one small but significant avenue into its workings. This opportunity for reform — however it ultimately turns out in reality — should not be lost.

Editorials represent the views of the Boston Globe Editorial Board. Follow us @GlobeOpinion.