Politics & Government

L.A. Group Petitions for Open Assembly Records

Californians for Legislature Ethics and Accountability Now are demanding that the Assembly opens its books to the public.

A Los Angeles-based organization on Monday began circulating a petition demanding that the State Assembly open their accounting ledgers to the public.

The petition, which is officially sponsored by the organization Californians for Legislature Ethics and Accountability Now (CLEAN), comes in response to a stand-off between Assembly President John Perez and Assemblyman Anthony Portantino (D-La Cañada Flintridge) over office spending records.

A copy of the petition can be found here.

California newspaper publishers, as well as Portantino himself, have filed public records requests demanding that the spending records be made public.

Portantino filed his 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 come not as a result of overspending, rather as punishment for failing to follow the Democratic party line on several key issues, including the state budget that was passed in June.

The assembly's rules committee has shot down all public records requests for spending information, asserting that the information is "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.

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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."

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