SACREMENTO, Calif.,
Aug. 11,
2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Senator Anthony Portantino's Senate Appropriations
Committee killed good government legislation today using one of the
Legislature's most undemocratic tactics, the "suspense file," which
legislative leadership uses to bury bills without public debate or
a vote, said Consumer Watchdog today.
AB 2370 (Levine) would have required all state agencies to
retain public records for a minimum of two years. The bill had
previously passed through the Assembly and through Senate Judicary
with overwhelming bipartisan support, and without a single No
vote.
State agencies currently have no minimum time requirement to
keep records, placing the public's right to access those records at
risk, said Consumer Watchdog.
"Shame on Senator Portantino for using the secretive 'suspense'
process to quietly kill a good government bill that had nearly
unanimous legislative support. AB 2370 would have ensured
Californians have access to information about the workings of their
government. The irony is, Senator Portantino used the most
un-democratic tactic to do so, shelving the bill without
explanation or a vote," said Carmen
Balber, executive director of Consumer Watchdog.
AB 2370 was supported by California News Publishers Association,
Californians Aware, Consumer Watchdog, First Amendment Coalition,
and Oakland Privacy.
The bill arose from the government corruption scandal involving
the Department of Insurance and the workers' compensation insurer
Applied Underwriters.
A second bill prompted by the scandal, AB 1783 (Levine) to
require "consultants" influencing administrative actions of state
agencies to register as lobbyists, was passed by the committee
and now moves to the Senate Floor.
California's landmark Public
Records Act reflects the principle that government transparency is
essential in a democracy. Yet, there is no minimum retention period
for such records that applies to state agencies. As a result,
records may be deleted or destroyed before the public or
journalists are able to access them.
AB 2370 would have applied to state agencies the same minimum
two-year retention period for public records that is already in
place for California counties and
cities.
Just this year the Department of Insurance adopted a record
deletion policy that would have automatically deleted agency email
after 180 days unless individual staff manually archived each
email.
The email deletion policy, which was pulled back in the wake of
media attention, was developed following statewide news coverage of
the pay-to-play scandal involving Applied Underwriters and cloaked
campaign donations to Insurance Commissioner Lara's 2022
re-election campaign.
Failure to retain public records is a problem that reaches
beyond the Department of Insurance. For example,
- As recently reported, the chief administrative officer of a
state agency testified that she routinely shredded scoring
worksheets that she no longer considered "relevant," even
though they were central to a contract bidding dispute.
- CalPERS began automatically deleting email older that 60 days
in 2011 after a different government scandal.
- In 2016, CalTRANS's 120-day auto delete email policy was
determined to constitute spoilation of evidence.
- The California Environmental Protection Agency currently
considers emails transmitting "informal information" to be
"transitory," and are deleted after 90 days.
- The Medical Board destroys "physician licensing files . . . .
not necessary to establish qualifications for licensure" upon the
time the physician's license is issued.
- The DMV destroys records regarding a driver's failure to
establish insurance coverage following an accident after just 30
days.
- The Department of Forestry destroys records regarding hazardous
material (Hazmat) property upon expiration of the relevant contract
regardless of the time period, and records of fire safety
inspections after one year.
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SOURCE Consumer Watchdog