Stewart then asked if de Sa would share some raw data with her, and where the Weekly could find the best information on the Mercury News site for their story on Fuentes, who was singled out in de Sa’s report. “We do not have the staff to undertake our own number-crunching and database searching,” wrote Stewart. “We do have the staff to take the findings about which electeds are serving as fronts for special interests, and do some great stories on it, however.” When I spoke to Stewart yesterday from L.A., she said, “I encourage every newspaper in California to look at this database the same way.”
The focus of Futch’s story is a “a stinker of a law known as Assembly Bill 2531, which was ghostwritten by Los Angeles’ powerful Community Redevelopment Agency.” As Futch describes the Fuentes-backed bill:
See, the CRA is a semi-autonomous city department that siphons off a portion of property taxes and uses those monies to redevelop “blighted” city neighborhoods. It does that by giving loans to owners — usually development companies who rehabilitate property or tear down existing buildings to erect apartment complexes, hotels or office towers.
It sounds pretty, but AB 2531 also had the potential to displace thousands of minority and poor L.A. residents—and wipe out huge swaths of nonblighted Los Angeles—through a land grab disguised as redevelopment.
The CRA has the power to declare eminent domain over blighted areas. According to the original wording of AB 2531 that Fuentes put his name on, “blight” would be expanded to a radical new definition: those unhealthy neighborhoods with “high incidences of obesity, diabetes and other diseases which are affected by poor access to fresh food” or places where there are “high incidences of asthma, lung cancer and other respiratory diseases which are affected by air pollution or the presence of contaminated properties,” and, lastly, areas “that suffer from a lack of parks and open space.”
The argument goes that Fuentes was supporting a bill that would redefine blight in a way that would give the CRA power to redevelop minority areas. Futch was surprised when Fuentes actually agreed to talk for the story, a decision that led to some rather interesting exchanges:
“There’s nothing wrong with generating ideas from different sources,” he says. “I’m not an attorney and I’m not the best writer and I depend on the city people,” meaning the Los Angeles city officials and civil bureaucrats who are actually writing the bills on which Fuentes puts his name. “There isn’t a monopoly on good ideas. I’ll take them from anyone.”
Futch’s report is pretty explicit about his intention to do work the Sacramento press corps has for the most part failed to do. In the story itself, Futch writes, “Legislators who front for the ghostwriters pass themselves off as high-achieving lawmakers—an image that’s allowed to stand by the mostly silent Sacramento press corps.” He quotes de Sa to make the point:
When de Sa started working on her newspaper’s online database, which any member of the public can use to look up the most compromised of the state’s legislators, Capitol workers—including reporters—“would say, ‘Sponsored bills? Well, duh. It’s the way things are done,’” de Sa says. “I’ve never worked in the Capitol. But people in the Capitol who work there and who cover the Capitol have become far too jaded and accustomed to lobbyists pushing bills. Some of the [legislative] staff does work for lobbyists and the lobbyists become de facto legislators. [Legislative staff and the media] have accepted as routine what we as outsiders would think is a shockingly unethical way of doing business.”
The Sacramento Bee’s Walters takes issue with the Mercury News and L.A. Weekly reports on two fronts. Firstly, he says, the sponsorship process is transparent, with the sponsor of the bill noted on a document known as the bill analysis. “Are legislators supposed to dream bills up out of their own head?” asks Walters. “It’s the same in Congress and in every legislative body in the country. Sometimes the lobbyist’s intention is legitimate and sometimes it’s nefarious. Figuring out which is which is the job of the press corps.”
"Sometimes the lobbyist’s intention is legitimate and sometimes it’s nefarious. Figuring out which is which is the job of the press corps.”
What if it was the job of the legislator and/or his staff? You know, before signing on to carry it in?
#1 Posted by edward ericson jr., CJR on Sun 14 Nov 2010 at 07:53 PM
In concept, I am against term limits because voters already have the ability to limit a term of an elected official on election day at the end of each term.
That being said, I don't like the excuses made by elected officials at the State and local level implying that staffers and lobbyist gain power. In Los Angeles, except for the aberration the City of Bell, the City Council is the highest paid and has the largest office budget including staff members.
A sincere Councilperson can take advantage of this staff and office budget and bring in someone from academia and not rely on lobbyists and career Council staff. And the issues surrounding development and business are not that complicated if Councilpersons seek advise away from the establishment.
#2 Posted by James McCuen, CJR on Mon 15 Nov 2010 at 12:54 AM
This situation is a direct result of the term limit rampage that the voters of California visited upon themselves in the last two decades. We have one big revolving door of politicians -- no sooner are they seated in their office than they start looking for their next job.
They are a bunch of amateurs, none of them have a clue how to write a bill. They aren't in office long enough to develop expertise in a subject, nor to form alliances and relationships across the aisle. There is no incentive to write and pass *good* legislation -- they are all long gone before the legislation gets enacted and they need to take responsibility for the bills they pass.
They have no reason to perform constituent services, because they won't be constituents for long. In fact, they need the goodwill of these lobbyists and bigtime players to win their *next* job. So you get the situation where the big money players invested in the day-to-day dealings of government are those who sponsor the candidacies, get their candidate elected, write their own bills, and see that they get passed.
The voters brought bad government on themselves, and they don't even know it. Sure, go ahead and wish that they bring in some academic instead of relying on lobbyists for their expertise. It's just not going to happen. It's just never going to happen.
#3 Posted by James, CJR on Mon 15 Nov 2010 at 09:23 AM