Dispute over Assembly budget records headed to court
By Jim Sanders
The Sacramento Bee
The Sacramento Bee
Published: Tuesday, Nov. 29, 2011 - 12:00 am | Page 1A
© Copyright The Sacramento Bee. All rights reserved.
Photo by HECTOR AMEZCUA / Sacramento Bee file, 201: Assembly Speaker John A. Pérez, D-Los Angeles, right, has a heated discussion with Assemblyman Anthony Portantino, D-La Cañada-Flintridge, during Assembly voting in March on a budget plan.
But his spat with Assembly Speaker John A. Pérez has sparked a rare fight over public access to legislative records, launched by The Bee and Los Angeles Times, in Sacramento Superior Court.
Hundreds of pages of documents have been filed in a case that could help define the limits of the 36-year-old Legislative Open Records Act.
At the heart of the dispute are budgets for individual Assembly members, any changes made to them by Pérez, and monthly projections about whether lawmakers are exceeding those budgets.
The lawsuit argues that voters have a fundamental right to monitor those matters, involving multimillions of dollars in public funds. The Assembly counters that such records are exempt from disclosure under the law because they are preliminary or planning documents subject to change.
The Assembly says it releases other data adequate to monitor spending: staff rosters and an itemized list of expenditures after they occur. The lawsuit counters that the spending data – typically released 12 months after a legislative year ends – obscures how much money lawmakers truly spend to run their offices.
Peter Scheer of the First Amendment Coalition, a free-speech advocacy group, said voters stand to benefit from vigorous debate over which records should be disclosed to help them evaluate lawmakers' job performance.
"A key aspect of that job is how prudently and fairly and honestly they spend money on themselves and their staff," Scheer said.
Portantino, D-La Cañada-Flintridge, ignited the legal war by seeking member-by-member budget records after Assembly leaders threatened in July to furlough his staff in response to what they called overspending. He argued that he was simply being punished for voting against this year's budget.
Portantino said Assembly records would show that his budget had been slashed for bucking the Democratic Party line with his vote. Member-by-member records also would show whether Pérez was punishing other lawmakers for votes on key issues, Portantino said.
When the Assembly balked at Portantino's demand for member records, and similar requests by The Bee and Los Angeles Times, the two newspapers jointly filed suit. Pérez ultimately lifted the threat to Portantino's staff, but the suit continues, with a hearing scheduled Friday.
The litigation argues that the Assembly twists "ordinary words on their head" by claiming that state law allows it to withhold documents showing how $146.7 million is allocated each year.
The Assembly's position would gut the notion of open records, the suit contends.
"The public has a profound interest in understanding how the government spends its money," it says.
The Assembly counters that the suit is unnecessary and unfounded.
"If every budget projection were required to be released, each iteration of it would cause confusion as to the meaning of the projection and would severely hamper the deliberative process of determining how best to spend the taxpayers' money," the Assembly argues in court documents.
California's legislative open-records law, passed in 1975, begins with a declaration that "access to information concerning the conduct of the people's business by the Legislature is a fundamental and necessary right of every citizen in this state."
The law proceeds to carve out exemptions from disclosure for various legislative records – including preliminary drafts, personnel matters and Assembly correspondence.
A key issue is whether member-by-member budgets and related projections or changes fall under those exemptions.
Pérez alone decides how much each lawmaker can spend each year. The sum consists of a base $263,000 and often a six-figure stipend to Democrats who chair committees or hold leadership posts.
The Assembly argues that member budgets and projections are draft documents because they can change due to emergencies or shifting priorities; they are correspondence because they are transmitted to members; and that they can contain personnel information, such as an aide's planned leave of absence.
Granting "unfettered access" to preliminary documents, including emails, would illegally interfere with the Legislature's power to deliberate and govern itself, the Assembly says.
The media lawsuit disagrees.
Member budgets are records of decisions that have been made, not preliminary drafts, the suit contends. It argues that projections of whether lawmakers are meeting those budgets provide a "factual baseline" for lawmakers.
"The suggestion that these budget numbers could 'change' is irrelevant," the suit says. "Life is not static. Any document reflecting any event is theoretically subject to change."
Similarly, the lawsuit contends that the "mere fact that a document may be sent from one Assembly office to another does not magically convert that document into 'correspondence.' "
Hundreds of pages of documents have been filed in a case that could help define the limits of the 36-year-old Legislative Open Records Act.
At the heart of the dispute are budgets for individual Assembly members, any changes made to them by Pérez, and monthly projections about whether lawmakers are exceeding those budgets.
The lawsuit argues that voters have a fundamental right to monitor those matters, involving multimillions of dollars in public funds. The Assembly counters that such records are exempt from disclosure under the law because they are preliminary or planning documents subject to change.
The Assembly says it releases other data adequate to monitor spending: staff rosters and an itemized list of expenditures after they occur. The lawsuit counters that the spending data – typically released 12 months after a legislative year ends – obscures how much money lawmakers truly spend to run their offices.
Peter Scheer of the First Amendment Coalition, a free-speech advocacy group, said voters stand to benefit from vigorous debate over which records should be disclosed to help them evaluate lawmakers' job performance.
"A key aspect of that job is how prudently and fairly and honestly they spend money on themselves and their staff," Scheer said.
Portantino, D-La Cañada-Flintridge, ignited the legal war by seeking member-by-member budget records after Assembly leaders threatened in July to furlough his staff in response to what they called overspending. He argued that he was simply being punished for voting against this year's budget.
Portantino said Assembly records would show that his budget had been slashed for bucking the Democratic Party line with his vote. Member-by-member records also would show whether Pérez was punishing other lawmakers for votes on key issues, Portantino said.
When the Assembly balked at Portantino's demand for member records, and similar requests by The Bee and Los Angeles Times, the two newspapers jointly filed suit. Pérez ultimately lifted the threat to Portantino's staff, but the suit continues, with a hearing scheduled Friday.
The litigation argues that the Assembly twists "ordinary words on their head" by claiming that state law allows it to withhold documents showing how $146.7 million is allocated each year.
The Assembly's position would gut the notion of open records, the suit contends.
"The public has a profound interest in understanding how the government spends its money," it says.
The Assembly counters that the suit is unnecessary and unfounded.
"If every budget projection were required to be released, each iteration of it would cause confusion as to the meaning of the projection and would severely hamper the deliberative process of determining how best to spend the taxpayers' money," the Assembly argues in court documents.
California's legislative open-records law, passed in 1975, begins with a declaration that "access to information concerning the conduct of the people's business by the Legislature is a fundamental and necessary right of every citizen in this state."
The law proceeds to carve out exemptions from disclosure for various legislative records – including preliminary drafts, personnel matters and Assembly correspondence.
A key issue is whether member-by-member budgets and related projections or changes fall under those exemptions.
Pérez alone decides how much each lawmaker can spend each year. The sum consists of a base $263,000 and often a six-figure stipend to Democrats who chair committees or hold leadership posts.
The Assembly argues that member budgets and projections are draft documents because they can change due to emergencies or shifting priorities; they are correspondence because they are transmitted to members; and that they can contain personnel information, such as an aide's planned leave of absence.
Granting "unfettered access" to preliminary documents, including emails, would illegally interfere with the Legislature's power to deliberate and govern itself, the Assembly says.
The media lawsuit disagrees.
Member budgets are records of decisions that have been made, not preliminary drafts, the suit contends. It argues that projections of whether lawmakers are meeting those budgets provide a "factual baseline" for lawmakers.
"The suggestion that these budget numbers could 'change' is irrelevant," the suit says. "Life is not static. Any document reflecting any event is theoretically subject to change."
Similarly, the lawsuit contends that the "mere fact that a document may be sent from one Assembly office to another does not magically convert that document into 'correspondence.' "
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