L.A.’s Ethics Panel Urged to Cover Gaps in State’s System

The architect of the state’s Political Reform Act, saying that California’s key political watchdog agency conducts almost no investigations of city officials unless it is tipped off by the press or receives a complaint, Monday recommended that the city’s Ethics Commission consider creating a local entity to fill the void.

Robert M. Stern, general counsel for the California Commission on Campaign Financing, also recommended that the Ethics Commission explore a law to allow random audits of city officials’ complete financial holdings, including their checking and savings accounts.

Stern said that because the state Fair Political Practices Commission must review thousands of economic disclosure forms submitted by state, county and city officials, it does not have the staff to “look . . . for substantive problems, for thin ice” except among state officials.

Sandra Michioku, a spokeswoman for the FPPC, confirmed that because the agency receives 15,000 disclosure forms from statewide officials and officials of 58 counties and more than 400 cities each year, it must rely in large part upon complaints from individuals and upon news stories to ferret out wrongdoing among local officials.

“It would be a monumental task to review everything that’s filed with us,” she said. Although disclosure forms submitted by state officials are reviewed in detail, reports from local officials are reviewed only to determine if they were properly completed, she said.

Stern spoke Monday morning before the city Ethics Commission, which is appointed by Mayor Tom Bradley and is charged with writing a new political ethics code for Los Angeles. Stern was joined by Melvin Cooper, director of Alabama’s Ethics Commission, who is considered an expert in political ethics legislation.

Geoffrey Cowan, chairman of the seven-member city panel, said he expects the group to complete a rough draft of the new code in October. Cowan said he and other panel members, including Archbishop Roger Mahony, Rabbi Allen Freehling, Los Angeles County Bar Assn. President Margaret Morrow and other civic leaders, will continue their work independently of the City Council, which plans to consider its own package of reforms in mid-summer.

Cowan said that among the questions being investigated by his commission are how to relax a state law that severely restricts the ability of the city to name a special prosecutor to investigate corruption and how to ensure that city lobbyists are more closely monitored.

Both Stern and Cooper urged the Ethics Commission to consider a plan to require more detailed reports on the personal investments of public officials.

Under state law, city officials currently are allowed to report stock and other holdings in broad categories of $1,000 to $10,000, $10,001 to 100,000, and $100,000 and up. The $100,000-and-up category, in particular, prevents the public from understanding the true level of a politician’s holdings. Stern said he would like to see categories created “for over $500,000 and over $1 million” in order to correct that problem.

Small Holdings

Stern also said, however, that too much effort is spent requiring politicians to report small holdings in large corporations over which they hold little or no sway.

He said he would like to see “less emphasis on reporting what you hold in large corporations like IBM, and maybe the threshold there can be increased” to require only the reporting of holdings worth at least $10,000.

Cooper told the Ethics Commission that its prime objective should be to ensure that the laws it recommends have enough teeth to “increase the confidence of the public in the integrity of government officials.”

In Alabama, he noted, any public employee making $25,000 or more must file an economic disclosure form. Moreover, all public officials are barred from accepting gifts or honorariums. Neither of those regulations exists in California.