Battenfeld: AG Andrea Campbell’s errors sting Massachusetts voters

No single person in Massachusetts bears more responsibility for denying voters the right to cast a ballot than inept Attorney General Andrea Campbell.

No rent control? Blame Campbell.

No state income tax cut? Blame Campbell.

No audit of the state Legislature? Blame Campbell.

Again and again Campbell has screwed up or worse, been complicit, leaving Bay State voters without the ability to exercise their right to decide important issues.

No amount of fawning pieces in the Boston Globe or publicity-seeking lawsuits against President Trump can cover up that fact.

She is a disaster. Unfortunately we have to suffer through another four years of her bonehead decision-making because Republicans in Massachusetts are just as inept at fielding viable candidates.

Massachusetts voters had the best chance in two decades this fall to establish rent control with a referendum question capping rent increases at 5%. Polls showed the ballot question with a solid advantage.

But Campbell, a liberal Democrat, allowed language on the question giving exemptions from the rent limits to religious institutions, which in Massachusetts violates the Constitution. The Supreme Judicial Court voted unanimously to kick the referendum question off the ballot.

This was not a case of political decision-making on Campbell’s part, since Democrats favored the rent control question. It was purely a rookie botch job, and a huge one at that, which will have major ramifications for renters, who will now be denied a much needed break from astronomical increases.

A simple reading of the Constitution should have caused Campbell to flag the question, and get the rent control advocates to strike the religious exemption. She admitted after she “got it wrong” — which is of no help to the renters in this state.

Apparently following the law, as Martin Short’s synchronized swimmer character would say, is not the Attorney General’s strong suit.

A similar error — or possibly an insidious political move — on Campbell’s part also blocked voters from getting a chance at lowering the state income tax from 5% to 4%.

The referendum question clearly had majority support, but was strongly opposed by Democrats like Campbell who argued it would have led to unconscionable cuts in social service programs to make up for the lost tax revenue.

Campbell okayed fatally flawed language in the ballot question which again caused the SJC to punt it off the ballot. This one may not have been just a simple mistake, but a possible deliberate act by Campbell to poison the question.

Politics again played a role in Campbell’s moves around a 72% voter-approved legislative audit by Auditor Diana DiZoglio. By not enforcing the new law, Campbell is flagrantly keeping DiZoglio from auditing the books of the despised, free-spending Legislature.

Campbell — rather than do her job — will not represent DiZoglio in her efforts to secure the audit, but authorized her to seek outside counsel, which will cost millions.

So on one hand saying she’ll enforce the law, she’s done everything she can to block it.

So what does Campbell do exactly? She has sued the Trump administration 50 times already, on a pace to exceed even Gov. Maura Healey’s lawsuits against Trump back when she was AG.

And she rarely ventures outside her Dartmouth, Mass. manse. Far from being the people’s lawyer, she stands against the people’s will.