Portantino says party leaders playing games with spending records

Assemblyman Anthony Portantino accused Democratic leaders Monday of “cooking the books” and misleading the public with legislative spending records that identified him as the lower house’s biggest spender last week.

At a news conference in his Capitol office, the La Cañada Flintridge Democrat cited the work of a Stanford University-based group of student researchers who documented what they described as “odd and peculiar” discrepancies between lawmakers’ expenditures, as detailed in records released late Friday, and the legislative payroll.

The group, named California Common Sense, compared the data, ranking Portantino in the middle of the pack when it comes to staff expenses in the 80-member body. L.A. TIMES