California state legislators block disclosure of Assembly spending and budgets

Saying they had already exceeded disclosure requirements on budget records, the California Legislature and Assembly said the records of correspondence about the disbursement of taxpayer money were exempt from disclosure. The Los Angeles Times and Sacramento Bee requested the records to investigate  a legislator’s claim that the Assembly Speaker was cutting his spending allowance because [...]

Federal ruling helps newspapers bid for California legislative expenses

A new federal ruling extended the application of the Freedom of Information Act bolstering the attempts of California newspapers to obtain records of California lawmakers’ budget allowances and expenditures. The newspapers were petitioning for the records under the state’s Legislative Open Records Act. The federal district court ruling came down in August when the judge [...]

Press sues California Legislature for access to office budgets and spending records

The Los Angeles Times with a number of other newspapers has sued the California Legislature to secure the office budgets and spending records of lawmakers and legislative committees. The Assembly Rules Committee rejected requests for the records last month saying they were exempt under California’s Public Records Act. The press wants to find out how [...]

California: Counsel for the newspaper publishers association says open meeting act now unenforeable

Thomas Newton, counsel and lobbyist for the California Newspaper Publishers Association, said that the Brown Act, California’s open meeting law, is not currently enforceable since the state stopped funding the act. He said the state cut the $20 million funding to reimburse local governments for creating and posting agendas for regular meetings and announcing decisions [...]

California lawmakers rein in exec pay at public universities

In response to the $9 million in executive compensation the UC Board of Regents approved this year, the  Senate passed legislation Thursday to prohibit future pay raises for top executives at University of California (UC) and California State Universities (CSU)  during  bad budget years. September 10, 2009 SACRAMENTO – On a 31-5 vote, the California [...]

No light shines on harassment settlements in California legislature

The California State Assembly and Senate have paid significant sums of money to settle harassment cases in the workplace but a 1968 open-records law keeps the details of the cases secret. -DB Los Angeles Times July 16, 2009 By Patrick McGreevy Reporting from Sacramento—State Senate officials have secretly approved a $70,000 legal settlement that prohibits a [...]