A Sacramento Superior Court judge is set to decide whether to grant a petition for writ of mandamus that would require the California Controller’s office to disclose line-by-line expenditures from last year to a national watchdog group.
During oral arguments on Nov. 19 between counsel for OpentheBooks.com and Controller Betty Yee, Judge Steven Gevercer asked how a report on spending is provided when Gov. Gavin Newsom requests it and how the Controller’s office audits itself.
OpentheBooks.com, Adam Andrzejewski, and American Transparency sued Yee last year after she responded to a request for production of documents by stating that the Controller’s office "does not retain, or is unable to access, any records concerning the payment of vendor contractors.”
"Our case is historic,” said Andrzejewski, founder, and CEO of OpentheBooks.com. “The state of California has successfully kept their line-by-line spending from scrutiny. Our case for the first time in history would open that up for the people, politicians, and pundits. Do we really have a representative democracy if our representatives are able to keep their spending hidden from the people and claim it's for their own good?”
While OpentheBooks.com privately collects and evaluates U.S. public-sector spending documents, the Controller's office is responsible for disbursing California's finances
Under the California Public Records Act, a state agency like the California Controller must make records available promptly to any person upon payment of fees after a request for reasonably identifiable records.
“The Controller is acting like they have a lot to hide whether it's at the federal level, the state level, or the local level and OpentheBooks.com auditors are compiling line-by-line spending transactions across the country," Andrzejewski told the Southern California Record. "California is the only state not to produce their checkbook. In fact, nearly 15,000 municipalities have produced their checkbook, in addition to the federal government, going back to 2001. So, California is way behind the transparency curve.”
But Attorney General Rob Bonta, representing Yee, argued that the records request is not reasonable.
“A search for records, which only need to have a relation to state spending, which practically speaking is petitioner's request, would require every division and employee of the Controller's office to review virtually every single record and database to determine if they have any documents or information related to state spending,” wrote Bonta in his Aug. 16 reply brief. “Because the public interest in the production of the information and the manner and scope petitioners seek is clearly outweighed by the public interest in avoiding the expense and inconvenience of engaging in such a limitless search of documents, the court should deny petitioner's petition for a Writ of Mandate.”