Legislative gift-taking eroding public trust

In an effort to stem the damaging headlines, Senate Democrats announced on Thursday their plans to introduce a package of bills to reform the gift rules for elected officials. The proposals include a ban on receiving any gifts from lobbyists, an overall reduction in the annual gift limit from $440 to $200 and an outright prohibition on accepting gifts of spa treatments, golf games and tickets to theme parks, concerts and sporting events.

“There is no question that recent events are testing the public’s faith in how our government does its work,” Sen. Ricardo Lara, D-Bell Gardens, said at the press conference. “We need to restore the public trust.” Of course, legislative leaders wouldn’t need more laws if they followed the best practices of their colleagues.

In the Assembly, Gatto has set the standard for ethics and transparency. He not only declined all international junkets, but disclosed gifts that even the state’s political watchdog would find unnecessary to report. His disclosure reports even include footnotes. 

Gatto follows spirit and letter of the law

“Giving and receiving small tokens are part of life,” Gatto said. “I try to follow the letter and spirit of the law, and that’s anything over $50.” In explanation of the gift certificate given to his daughter, Gatto said, “The rules are very clear that we have to report anything over $50.” 

Technically, Gatto’s interpretation of the law is correct. According to Fair Political Practices Commission’s instructions for the Form 700, the annual statement of economic interests, elected officials must report “gifts given to members of your immediate family” if the official can “exercise discretion or control over the use or disposition of the gift.” This “control over the use or disposition of the gift” also includes tickets to concerts and sporting events. It explains why Gatto reported tickets to the Rose Parade and Rose Bowl that he gave away to local high school students who had overcome adversity.

For several years, unlike many of his colleagues, Gatto has worked with teachers and administrators and found deserving students to take his spot at the big game.  And don’t think Gatto does it for the positive publicity. He’s been doing it for years and never told the press. The only place you’ll find it: on Gatto’s financial disclosure report, in compliance with state law.

Ethics: Appearance of impropriety

Jessica Levinson, a Loyola Law School professor who specializes in governmental ethics, said that the issue of elected officials accepting gifts is a balance between what is allowed versus what appears to cross the line of undue influence. “If the laws allows legislators to accept gifts, then is it improper or indecent for them to do so?” she asked. “While some gifts are permissible, it can intuitively feel problematic when our elected lawmakers accept gifts when we all strongly suspect they would not receive those gifts were it not for their official roles, and the power they wield in those roles.”

That appearance of impropriety is exacerbated when lawmakers travel with lobbyists on extravagant junkets to exotic locales. Last year, California lawmakers collected passport stamps from Germany, Switzerland, Cuba, Mexico, Poland, Norway, Taiwan, Israel, China, Armenia, Sweden, Canada and South Korea, much of it on the dime of special interest groups.

“When it comes to traveling and attending conferences, I want our officials to leave the Capitol and learn from others,” Levinson said.  “I don’t necessarily want them to do all of that on the public’s dime. When the conferences look fishy, or the sources of the funds have substantial business before the state, it is certainly fair to ask questions.”

Some legislators have avoided the questions altogether. During the Legislature’s 2013 spring break, while dozens of lawmakers were relaxing in Taiwan, Eastern Europe and Cuba, state Sen. Ted Lieu, D-Torrance, fulfilled his monthly Air Force reserve duty. In addition to Lieu, state Sen. Jim Beall, D-San Jose, and Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez, D-San Diego, have declined to participate in junkets. And, of course, so did the Legislature’s ethical leader, Mike Gatto. “We are a big state with international implications, but I choose to stay in California,” he said. “My policy is simple: I will travel for limited circumstances but only in California. I am a California official.”

State Senators Ted Lieu, D-Torrance, and Joel Anderson, R-San Diego, introduced legislation on Monday that would ban state agencies, officials and corporations that provide services to the state from supporting or assisting the federal government to spy or collect data on Californians, unless the government first obtains a warrant. The lawmakers say that they introduced Senate Bill 828 following “the repeated federal admissions of widespread spying on innocent American citizens.”

“The National Security Agency’s massive level of spying and indiscriminate collecting of phone and electronic data on all Americans, including more than 38 million Californians, is a direct threat to our liberty and freedom,” Lieu said in a statement announcing the bill's introduction. “Let’s be clear: when the government deliberately violates the Constitution on a mass basis, it poses a clear and present danger to our liberties.”

The bill, which is introduced as an urgency measure, requires two-thirds support in both houses of the Legislature. With Anderson, a prominent conservative Republican as a co-author, it is likely to pick up additional support.

“I support this bill because I support the Constitution, our Fourth Amendment rights and our freedoms to live in the United States of America,” Anderson said.

Response to Snowden revelations

Lieu's legislation comes in response to last summer's revelations by former defense contractor and government whistleblower Edward Snowden that the NSA has been collecting phone data on millions of Americans for years.  In December, a federal judge ruled that the “almost-Orwellian” bulk collection of Americans’ phone records is likely unconstitutional.

“The almost-Orwellian technology that enables the government to store and analyze the phone metadata of every telephone user in the United States is unlike anything that could have been conceived in 1979,” Judge Richard Leon wrote in his December ruling.

Later in the month, another federal judge, District Judge William H. Pauley III, ruled in favor of the program, describing it as a key tool in the war on terrorism. That ruling has buoyed the argument on Capitol Hill that such widespread warrantless surveillance is in the interest of national security.

“I would hope that Judge Pauley's opinion will lessen at least some of the adulation for Edward Snowden as well as the rabid anti-NSA hysteria which has become so pervasive,” said Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y.

Lieu's military service brings credibility on national security

Supporters of warrantless government surveillance programs, such as King, will have a challenging time lecturing Lieu about national security. That's because Lieu is a decorated member of the armed services. Last year, while on the Legislature's spring break, the lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Air Force Reserves was awarded with the Air Force Meritorious Service Medal.

Lieu, who understands national security, recognizes that an unchecked federal government poses a threat to Americans.

“I agree with the NSA that the world is a dangerous place,” Lieu said. “That is why our founders enacted the Bill of Rights. They understood the grave dangers of an out-of-control federal government.”

Tech firms based in California

The bill is expected to have national implications as the biggest names in technology are largely based in California. Silicon Valley-based technology firms could embrace Lieu's bill in a bid to repair their image after many of them have been accused of being complicit in government surveillance.

According to the Guardian, Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and Facebook cooperated with the NSA spying and were paid millions of dollars for costs incurred from the Prism surveillance program.

State resources shouldn't be used for indiscriminate spying

Some legal experts question whether the bill could survive a challenge from the federal government.

“It is no different from a state saying it would not help the federal government carry out an order to desegregate schools,” Erwin Chemerinsky told the Daily Breeze; he's the dean of the School of Law at the University of California, Irvine and shares Lieu's concerns on NSA surveillance,”States cannot interfere with or impede the achievement of a federal objective.”

Lieu says that it comes down to a question of whether state resources should be used on unconstitutional practices.

“State-funded public resources should not be going toward aiding the NSA or any other federal agency from indiscriminate spying on its own citizens and gathering electronic or metadata that violates the Fourth Amendment,” Lieu said.

A national security expert told UT San Diego columnist Steven Greenhut that, even if the legislation is blocked in federal court, it can have a symbolic impact. Last year, Lieu introduced Senate Resolution 16, a measure that urged Congress to stop its unconstitutional practices.

“Even if the bill is in a sense symbolic, it can have a real effect,” Ivan Eland, a national security expert with the Oakland-based Independent Institute, told the UT San Diego.