VOTE Needn’t Use the Loophole

Valley VOTE, the group pushing the San Fernando Valley’s secession from the rest of Los Angeles, has long refused to release the names of those bankrolling its efforts. Its stonewalling may not pass the smell test but it’s legal, thanks to a loophole in state laws.

A measure passed in the last hours of the state Legislature’s last day aims to close this loophole--sort of.

The measure is only a small part of a massive overhaul of the 1985 Cortese-Knox Local Governmental Reorganization Act, and that is part of its problem. The Cortese-Knox Act set up local agency formation commissions, or LAFCOs, the relatively obscure (until recently) panels that usually oversee small-time boundary changes.

California has 57 LAFCOs--one for every county except San Francisco--and the overhaul had to fit all of them. Many boundary proposals, including those proposed by school districts, are relatively tiny, and some commission members, along with education officials, worried that a one-size-fits-all disclosure policy would burden them with complicated reporting procedures even for minor changes.

So the measure included in the LAFCO overhaul authorizes each commission to decide whether to require disclosure of contributions and expenditures made in support of or opposition to a proposal.

The key word here is “authorizes.” Yes, the measure would clarify that LAFCOs have the authority to mandate disclosure, which has been in dispute. But it doesn’t require them to. It merely requires them to hold hearings, then decide.

A better way to address an exceptional case like Valley secession--which is clearly a political campaign with potentially enormous consequences--would have been a carefully crafted bill that specifically addresses large secession efforts. If Valley secession is a square peg, the Legislature needs to design a square hole.

But that would have to be left to a future Legislature--and any changes would likely come too late to address Valley VOTE’s lapses. Even if the local LAFCO were to decide to require disclosure next year, it would not retroactively apply to the hundreds of thousands of dollars Valley VOTE has already raised.

So Valley VOTE is off the hook again--except to those who believe that refusing to disclose financial contributions while promoting an “open and accountable” Valley city is an act of hypocrisy. Valley VOTE could still answer such criticism by making its own late-hour reversal and voluntarily naming its financial backers.