At the Massachusetts Republican Party convention in Worcester on Saturday, the loudest applause wasn’t for any GOP candidate. It was for Diana DiZoglio — a Democrat. The state auditor’s years-long crusade to audit the Legislature has made her the unlikely darling of a party that’s spent decades searching for traction in this state. When US Senate candidate John Deaton bellowed “Where the hell is our audit?” from the convention stage, the delegates reportedly lost their minds.

This is the strange political weather Beacon Hill has created. DiZoglio’s audit push earned 72 percent of the vote in 2024 — a margin that cuts across every demographic and zip code in the Commonwealth. And yet legislative leaders, most of them fellow Democrats, have stonewalled her at every turn, forcing her into court and onto social media singing parody songs about government transparency. The more they dig in, the more she looks like a reformer, and the more Republicans get to borrow her credibility for free.

What happens next is worth watching closely. DiZoglio’s fight is still unresolved in court, and the Legislature shows no signs of rolling out the welcome mat. But every day this drags on, the optics get worse for Democratic leadership — and more useful for anyone trying to make the case that Beacon Hill operates like a closed club.

The city has agreed to settle a federal civil rights lawsuit brought by four people who say Boston police officers beat them with batons and pepper-sprayed them while they were peacefully leaving a George Floyd protest on Boston Common in May 2020. None of the four were charged with any crime. Officers Michael Burke, Edward Nolan, and Michael McManus were named in the suit; the city did not admit wrongdoing.

Governor Maura Healey is defending her proposed legislation that would require platforms to install “age assurance” systems and restrict features like infinite scroll and algorithm-driven feeds for users under 18. Critics — including digital rights advocates who protested outside the Boston Public Library on Tuesday — say the bill could actually require kids to hand over government IDs or face scans just to use the internet, creating new privacy risks in the name of safety.

The court ordered the release of Manuel Maria Loja Loja, an Ecuadorian national married to a U.S. citizen with three children, after finding that an ICE report justifying his detention had misread Brockton District Court records and ignored testimony from his family and church. He’d been locked up at the Plymouth County jail since May of last year.

The Lynn Water and Sewer Commission just completed a project separating the city’s stormwater and sewer systems in West Lynn, ending decades of combined sewage overflows that were dumping raw waste into the Saugus River and Lynn Harbor during heavy rains. Mayor Jared Nicholson says it unlocks real waterfront investment. More than 40 similar overflow sites still exist along the Charles, Mystic, and Boston Harbor.

The city’s new climate action plan quietly extends Boston’s target to join a FEMA flood insurance discount program to 2030 — a program it was supposed to join by 2021, then 2026. The delay has already cost nearly 6,000 residents and businesses a combined $785,000 in unnecessary premiums. The city’s chief climate officer says he still plans to apply this year, but the new plan’s language gives them room to slip again.

Detective Dante DiFronzo was fired for allegedly withholding evidence and lying in reports — then reinstated by an arbitrator, then won a federal lawsuit claiming retaliation. He still hasn’t returned to work, and the Middlesex DA’s office has essentially blacklisted him from testifying in court. The city is appealing. The meter is still running.

Boston City Council hearing on data centers: Councilor Ed Flynn is requesting a hearing today on whether Boston should consider a moratorium on new data centers, citing concerns about their enormous water and electricity demands during an affordability crisis.

PROTECT Act in the Senate: Immigration advocates from a 58-organization coalition are pressing the Massachusetts Senate to strengthen the House-passed PROTECT Act with provisions banning information sharing with ICE and expanding virtual court access — watch for committee movement in the coming weeks.

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Yesterday's Biggest Contributions

Data from the MA Office of Campaign & Political Finance

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Recent filings with the Massachusetts Office of Campaign and Political Finance:

Candidates

• Kayla Kittredge — Lieutenant Governor — Filed: 4/28/2026
• Daniel Kelly (Republican) — House, 2nd Essex — Filed: 4/28/2026
• Edward Walsh (Democratic) — House, 3rd Bristol — Filed: 4/28/2026
• Jennifer Spadafora (Democratic) — Mayoral, Malden — Filed: 4/24/2026
• Ronald Heiseler (Republican) — House, 15th Essex — Filed: 4/23/2026

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