Following Gov.’s Lead, State Officials Release Calendars

California Atty. Gen. Bill Lockyer gives a lot of speeches. Insurance Commissioner John Garamendi keeps tabs on Democratic fundraisers. Treasurer Phil Angelides makes time for reporters from coast to coast. And Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante doesn’t do much -- at least according to the daily calendars they keep.

For the first time in 15 years, all of California’s constitutional officers recently agreed to release their calendars in light of a public records amendment that voters placed in the Constitution last fall. The officials were following the lead of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who revealed his appointment records in December.

The hundreds of pages of daily entries, covering 2003 and 2004, vary greatly in detail. Some information was deleted on the grounds that it was personal. But the calendars offer a glimpse at the work patterns of the seven statewide politicians, all Democrats -- and sometimes provide a few telling details.

For example, Controller Steve Westly -- a former executive with the private Internet auction service EBay -- keeps a busy schedule, though it’s not always clear what he does. His calendar frequently lists “private appointments” with no elaboration. On June 8 of last year, he noted four meetings with people or organizations and four blocks of time labeled as private.

That was an especially busy day for Lockyer but not for Bustamante, their calendars show.

Starting at 9 a.m., Lockyer telephoned the mother of a slain San Francisco police officer and talked with leaders of the police union and the county district attorney. Then he held a press conference on the prosecution of an alleged cop-killer, gave an interview to a Business Week reporter and was briefed by a legislative aide on a bill to keep cigarettes out of the hands of children.

At 6 p.m., Lockyer gave a radio interview and at 7:45 delivered a speech to business people in Fremont.

By contrast, Bustamante’s calendar shows a sharply different day, even though his official website notes that the lieutenant governor is “involved in some of the most integral areas of state government.” His June 8 calendar shows a single appointment -- a 4 p.m. reception in the Napa Valley for the vice president of Taiwan.

Angelides, who is running for the Democratic nomination for the 2006 gubernatorial race, talked frequently with the media, especially those covering financial news. Only Angelides attached a glossary to fully describe the people, groups and jargon noted in shorthand in his calendar.

The recently resigned Secretary of State Kevin Shelley kept a calendar that became more spare after August 2004, when the San Francisco Chronicle first raised questions of alleged money laundering by a Shelley supporter.

As those allegations, now under federal investigation, snowballed into other questions about Shelley’s political and professional activities, his calendar shows him increasingly in his hometown, San Francisco, on “state business” or “scheduling meeting -- KS and staff.”

Bustamante took the longest -- more than two months -- to respond to a public records request by The Times. His calendar was among the most vague, including many entries marked “briefing time,” “phone calls” or “scheduling meeting.”

Bustamante spokesman Stephen Green said the lieutenant governor is “busy all the time,” but his calendar doesn’t reflect that.

“When he’s having a meeting with staff here to talk about the military family relief act, those kind of things are never scheduled on the calendar because if something comes up, it can always be rescheduled,” said Green.

“If he’s in the office,” said Green, “constituents come by, he’s calling constituents, he’s in contact daily with constituent groups.”

Green said the biggest block of Bustamante’s time involves his responsibilities as a University of California regent and trustee for the California State University system. But minutes from the 2003 and 2004 meetings of those boards show that Bustamante missed far more meetings than he attended.

Bustamante also did not release a calendar for the period of August 20, 2003, through October 7, 2003, when he was campaigning for governor.

His staff did not maintain a calendar for him during that period “in order to avoid even the appearance of the use of state resources for political purposes,” Chief of Staff Lynn Montgomery wrote in a cover letter accompanying the calendar.

Bustamante’s situation is “a little different than other constitutional officers,” Montgomery said, because the law gives the lieutenant governor fewer responsibilities.

Until recently, politicians had argued that they did not have to release their daily calendars. They pointed to a 1991 California Supreme Court decision in which justices ruled 4 to 3 that calendar disclosure could interfere with the deliberative process of government.

The case stemmed from a 1988 request by The Times for five years of daily calendars from Gov. George Deukmejian.

Two things have changed since that ruling, said Peter Scheer, executive director of the California First Amendment Coalition, a San Rafael-based nonprofit organization.

In November, voters overwhelmingly passed Proposition 59, which places the public right of access to government writings and meetings in the state Constitution.

And in December, saying he had nothing to hide, Schwarzenegger released his calendar in response to a request from the coalition.

Proposition 59 does not explicitly call for the release of calendars. But it adds heft to the argument that such documents should be made public.

Schwarzenegger’s move set a political, not a legal, precedent.

The governor’s 350-page edited calendar shows frequent meetings with corporate executives and union leaders. But the calendar does not list meetings with the governor’s outside political consultants, some of whom also represent private companies with business before the state.

Scheer called Schwarzenegger’s calendar “bare bones” but said it would at least give reporters a road map for more questions.

The calendars of the other constitutional officers were requested by The Times on Dec. 1 and 2.

State Supt. of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell released a complete, unedited calendar within a week. It listed details, including flight numbers, for his frequent airplane trips around the state, as well as driving directions to schools, conferences and other locations where he met with people and gave speeches.

O’Connell’s calendar also gives the names and often the phone numbers of people with whom he meets, and it usually lists a topic. When O’Connell met on Nov. 16, 2004, with Patrick Johnston, a lobbyist for textbook maker McGraw-Hill Education, for example, his calendar noted the topic: “when they can use corporate logos (National Geographic).”

Garamendi, Angelides and Lockyer also generally name in their calendars the people with whom they meet and the topics. Bustamante, Westly and Shelley reveal fewer details.

According to the cover letters that accompanied the calendars, each officer except O’Connell removed at least travel, personnel and personal information, including children’s soccer games and medical appointments. Westly, whose calendar is full of entries noting “private appointment,” deleted entries when his lawyers believed that “the public interest in disclosure is clearly outweighed by privacy or other concerns,” according to his Dec. 31 response to The Times’ request.

San Francisco media lawyer Karl Olson, who has represented many newspapers, including The Times, said very little should have been omitted from the records.

He pointed to language in a state appellate court decision that defines public records as covering every conceivable kind of document involved in the governmental process except the purely personal -- “i.e., the shopping list phoned from home, the letter to a public officer from a friend which is totally void of reference to governmental activities,” said Olson, quoting the court opinion.

He said, “We have to remember these people work for us.”