L.A. Times, Sac Bee Sue Over Assembly Records

The publishers of The Sacramento Bee and Los Angeles Times newspapers joined on Friday to sue the California State Assembly over its refusal to release legislators' spending records and office budgets.

The Bee's full story can be found here.

The lawsuit stems from a public request filed independently by each newspaper, as well as the office of Assemblyman Anthony Portantino (D-La Cañada-Flintridge) in mid-July.

Portatino  after being warned by the Assembly's rules committee that he would need to reduce his office's budget by $67,000 or risk having his staff furloughed between Oct. 21 and Nov. 30.

He claims that the threats of furloughs come not as a result of overspending, but are a punishment for failing to follow in line with Assembly Democrats on several key issues, including the state's annual budget.

Portantino's staff recieved official notices from the rules committee warning them of the  on Friday, July 29. On Tuesday, the assembly  the public requests for Assembly spending records.

In rejecting the request, the Assembly's Rules Committee chief administrative officer, Jon Waldie, cited the budget information as being  "correspondence of and to individual Members of the legislature and its staff" and said it could be exempt on the basis of being "preliminary drafts, notes or legislative memoranda," which are exempt under the California Public Records Act.

The Bee's story quotes directlly from the lawsuit, stating:

"... the requested records do not fall under the exemptions cited by the Rules Committee. The Asseembly's refusal to release them violates provisions in the state Constitution that give residents the right to access information about government conduct."

Peter Scheer of the First Amendement Coalition said in an  on Wednesday that even if state open records laws did not explicitly suggest that all budget information should be made public, it should be obvious that the public has a right to the information.

"Even if there were no open records law at all you would think that every government official would acknowledge that government budgets are the property of the public," Scheer said.

LOCAL GROUP PETITIONS FOR ASSEMBLY RECORDS

A Los Angeles based organization on Monday began circulating a petition, officially sponsored by the organization Californians for Legislature Ethics and Accountability Now (CLEAN), demanding that the State Assembly open their accounting ledgers to the public. 

A copy of the petition can be found here.

Eliot Sekuler, a Mount Washington resident who is circulating the petition, said that "community members are outraged that the assembly is stonewalling information that is clearly essential to the public."

"This amount of money, $146 million, is not a trivial matter. It's outrageous that they would keep it from the public," Sekuler said. "We're also very concerned about the potential loss of constituent services as a result of the furloughs."