BY RYAN SABALOW
This story was originally published by CalMatters. Sign up for their newsletters.
California’s legislative leaders don’t think the public should know whether federal agents are investigating state lawmakers for public corruption, nor do they believe taxpayers should know how much of their money the Legislature is spending on criminal defense lawyers.
Following recent reports that Southern California Sen. Susan Rubio has been questioned in a federal public corruption investigation, CalMatters filed requests with the state Assembly and Senate seeking copies of federal law enforcement subpoenas and search warrants dating to 2020.
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CalMatters also sought under the California Legislative Open Records Act invoices or other records showing how much money the Legislature has spent since 2020 on legal bills related to federal criminal investigations.
Identical letters from the Rules Committees for the Assembly and Senate cited four reasons for denying the record requests including “the public interest served by not making the record public clearly outweighs the public interest served by disclosure of the record.”
The offices of Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas and Senate President Pro Tem Mike McGuire didn’t respond to CalMatters’ interview requests.
But the secrecy alarms open-government advocates.
“The public absolutely has a right to know whether … one of their representatives or public officials is under criminal investigation,” said Sean McMorris of California Common Cause, a non-profit, non-partisan organization that advocates for government transparency and accountability.
David Loy, legal director for the First Amendment Coalition, another government transparency advocacy group, said the citation about the disclosure not serving the public interest “is the last refuge of the scoundrel and is invoked whenever somebody wants to withhold something inconvenient.”
The Legislative Open Records Act, first signed in 1975, gives lawmakers and their staff members more discretion to withhold records than most other public agencies have under the similar California Public Records Act.
But Loy said that even if they have a legal right to withhold records, public agencies usually have broad discretion to release them. In other words, they could release these records in the interest of transparency if they wanted to.
“Even if (secrecy) might be allowed under the letter of law in some circumstances, that is not a position that I think serves the public well,” he said. “We should err on the side of disclosure. The public has a right to know.”
In addition to the public interest citation, the Senate and Assembly letters cited three other reasons for denying the records. It said the Legislative Open Records Act allows documents to be “exempt from mandatory disclosure” if the records:
- “Are in the custody of the Legislative Counsel.”
- Are prohibited or not required for release by state or federal law.
- Involve issues of attorney-client privilege.
GO GET’M CALMATTERS AND CALIFORNIA COMMON CAUSE ……
Cars Are Basic, Inc. has been fighting the rear guard battle for 26 years. As a small group it has been difficult.
Many of the issues in this piece have been rampant for over 40 years.
Thanks,
CAB
Gee – if there were Feds looking for THEIR employees, they’d think that was pretty danged important and that THEY would want to know!!! They’re OUR employees, we have to PAY them – and they think we don’t need to know???
WOW – – – What arrogance and STUPIDITY!!!!