Wednesday, August 11, 2004
Extensive legislative investigation?
Legislature has a chance to improve investigative record
By Dan Walters
Sacramento Bee Columnist
(Published August 11, 2004)
The Legislature reacted with uncommon speed when allegations surfaced in thelate 1990s that Chuck Quackenbush, the state insurance commissioner and a potential Republican candidate for governor, was making under-the-tabledeals with insurance companies.
The Legislature, controlled by Democrats, launched the most extensive legislative investigation in recent history, delving deeply into insurers'payments to private foundations, in lieu of official fines, for mishandling claims.
The foundation payments were spent in ways that raised Quackenbush's political profile. Ultimately, after trial-like legislative hearings,Quackenbush resigned in disgrace. Did the Quackenbush case herald a new and long-overdue era of activeoversight by the Legislature, as its leaders insisted, pointing proudly toits bipartisan nature?
Apparently not, because a couple of years later, theDemocratic leaders tried to bury a detailed investigation of a $100 millionsoftware contract the Gray Davis administration awarded to the Oracle Corp under unusual, even inexplicable, circumstances.
One Democratic lawmaker, Dean Florez, stubbornly insisted on delving into the Oracle matter (which included a $25,000 campaign contribution to Democrat Davis), bucking interference from legislative leaders.
The same double standard of legislative justice has been evident in thehandling of other potential scandals as well.
The Legislature refused, for example, to probe irregularities in how millions of dollars inimmigrant-assistance funds were spent. The Department of Education shoveledmoney to groups that were supposed to be conducting educational programs forimmigrants, but when career civil servants raised questions about whetherthe money was being spent for its intended purposes, they - not the recipients of the money - were chastised by their political bosses.
The Legislature now has another opportunity to prove that its investigative zeal isn't confined to the actions of Republican officeholders such as Quackenbush because another statewide official, Secretary of State KevinShelley, finds himself under a cloud.
The San Francisco Chronicle, in an exhaustively researched article, reportedthis week that Democrat Shelley, a former San Francisco legislator, received$100,000 in campaign funds from individuals and companies that had been paidalmost identical amounts from a state grant that Shelley had championed.
The grant was to build a community center that was, in fact, never constructed.Shelley denies any knowledge of the interrelated transactions, and sayshe'll return any funds that were improperly funneled into his campaign treasury - and the FBI says it is looking into the case. But that shouldn'tstop the Legislature from conducting its own inquiry, because the chain ofevents involves the state Department of Parks and Recreation.
The money in question was a small piece of the many millions of dollars theLegislature lavished on local pork barrel projects in 2000, as the statetreasury bulged with income tax revenues. Legislators lined up to getgoodies for their constituents, and among them was Shelley, then a state assemblyman from San Francisco, who got $500,000 earmarked for the community center. As the Chronicle reported, the parks and recreation agency approved payments totaling $492,500 to the nonprofit San Francisco Neighbors Resource Center after accepting misleading, perhaps even fraudulent, documentsindicating that the work had been completed. Shelley, the newspaperreported, has extensive political ties to the recipients of the bond money.
The Legislature should order an audit of where the money went and demand facts about parks and recreation's approval. Was it bureaucratic bungling,or was pressure exerted through the politically appointed parks hierarchy -its director at the time was former Assemblyman Rusty Areias - to accept thescant documentation that the group submitted?
There are hints of the Quackenbush and Oracle scandals in the Shelley affair- of public money going into someone's pocket under mysterious, politicallycharged circumstances - as well as the immigrant-education scandal. Will theLegislature conduct real oversight, or once again overlook some seriously suspicious events?
By Dan Walters
Sacramento Bee Columnist
(Published August 11, 2004)
The Legislature reacted with uncommon speed when allegations surfaced in thelate 1990s that Chuck Quackenbush, the state insurance commissioner and a potential Republican candidate for governor, was making under-the-tabledeals with insurance companies.
The Legislature, controlled by Democrats, launched the most extensive legislative investigation in recent history, delving deeply into insurers'payments to private foundations, in lieu of official fines, for mishandling claims.
The foundation payments were spent in ways that raised Quackenbush's political profile. Ultimately, after trial-like legislative hearings,Quackenbush resigned in disgrace. Did the Quackenbush case herald a new and long-overdue era of activeoversight by the Legislature, as its leaders insisted, pointing proudly toits bipartisan nature?
Apparently not, because a couple of years later, theDemocratic leaders tried to bury a detailed investigation of a $100 millionsoftware contract the Gray Davis administration awarded to the Oracle Corp under unusual, even inexplicable, circumstances.
One Democratic lawmaker, Dean Florez, stubbornly insisted on delving into the Oracle matter (which included a $25,000 campaign contribution to Democrat Davis), bucking interference from legislative leaders.
The same double standard of legislative justice has been evident in thehandling of other potential scandals as well.
The Legislature refused, for example, to probe irregularities in how millions of dollars inimmigrant-assistance funds were spent. The Department of Education shoveledmoney to groups that were supposed to be conducting educational programs forimmigrants, but when career civil servants raised questions about whetherthe money was being spent for its intended purposes, they - not the recipients of the money - were chastised by their political bosses.
The Legislature now has another opportunity to prove that its investigative zeal isn't confined to the actions of Republican officeholders such as Quackenbush because another statewide official, Secretary of State KevinShelley, finds himself under a cloud.
The San Francisco Chronicle, in an exhaustively researched article, reportedthis week that Democrat Shelley, a former San Francisco legislator, received$100,000 in campaign funds from individuals and companies that had been paidalmost identical amounts from a state grant that Shelley had championed.
The grant was to build a community center that was, in fact, never constructed.Shelley denies any knowledge of the interrelated transactions, and sayshe'll return any funds that were improperly funneled into his campaign treasury - and the FBI says it is looking into the case. But that shouldn'tstop the Legislature from conducting its own inquiry, because the chain ofevents involves the state Department of Parks and Recreation.
The money in question was a small piece of the many millions of dollars theLegislature lavished on local pork barrel projects in 2000, as the statetreasury bulged with income tax revenues. Legislators lined up to getgoodies for their constituents, and among them was Shelley, then a state assemblyman from San Francisco, who got $500,000 earmarked for the community center. As the Chronicle reported, the parks and recreation agency approved payments totaling $492,500 to the nonprofit San Francisco Neighbors Resource Center after accepting misleading, perhaps even fraudulent, documentsindicating that the work had been completed. Shelley, the newspaperreported, has extensive political ties to the recipients of the bond money.
The Legislature should order an audit of where the money went and demand facts about parks and recreation's approval. Was it bureaucratic bungling,or was pressure exerted through the politically appointed parks hierarchy -its director at the time was former Assemblyman Rusty Areias - to accept thescant documentation that the group submitted?
There are hints of the Quackenbush and Oracle scandals in the Shelley affair- of public money going into someone's pocket under mysterious, politicallycharged circumstances - as well as the immigrant-education scandal. Will theLegislature conduct real oversight, or once again overlook some seriously suspicious events?
# posted by Senator Dean Florez @ 1:08 PM 
