Voters passed the Political Reform Act of 1974 requiring elected and appointed official of state agencies to post their investments and financial dealings so citizens could track conflicts of interest. These postings will now be online making them truly accessible to the public. -DB
San Francisco Chronicle
March 30, 2009
By John Wildermuth
After nearly 35 years, Californians are finally going to have an easy way of checking the financial dealings of some of the state’s top officials.
Beginning this week, senior members of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s staff and the top leaders of state agencies will be required to post their statements of economic interests, also known as “Form 700s,” online for all the world to see.
Since voters passed the Political Reform Act of 1974, elected and appointed officials across the state have had to list, in broad terms, their investments and financial dealings, alerting the public to potential conflicts of interest.
Problem is, those reports have never been easy to find. Of the estimated 100,000 filed each year, some go to cities, some go to counties, some go to government agencies and about 20,000 go to the Fair Political Practices Commission in Sacramento.
That means that someone who wants to find out whether a local official has a conflict first has to find where that annual statement is filed and then make the trek to that office to look up the paper form.
But earlier this month, things changed after Schwarzenegger took heat when Rosario Marin, secretary of the State and Consumer Services Agency, resigned after it was found she was paid more than $28,000 to give speeches to companies doing business with her agency.
Within a day, Schwarzenegger ordered top administration officials to post not only their statements of economic interests online but also all their travel expenses.
While such information has been public information for decades, there’s a difference between “public” and “readily available,” a gap Schwarzenegger intends to bridge, said Aaron McLear, a spokesman for the governor.
The 2007 economic interest statements for Schwarzenegger’s staff already have been posted as public notices on the governor’s Web site, with the 2008 statements due online by the end of the week.
Each state agency will post the required forms and reports on their individual Web sites, McLear said. Only the governor’s staff and state agencies he directly oversees are affected by the new online disclosure rule.
Copyright 2009 San Francisco Chronicle