I believe that if we don’t have ethical elected officials, then we can’t have government that works for us. It’s that simple.”
I believe that if we don’t have ethical elected officials, then we can’t have government that works for us. It’s that simple.”
I have many ideas for making local, county and state government more accountable to people. Here are just a few:
STRONG CONFLICT OF INTEREST LAWS
For some elected officials, public office is just a tool to enrich friends and family. They see no problem handing out state jobs to family members. I believe we can end this practice by strengthening California’s Conflict of Interest Laws to ban the practice of giving a job to ANY family members of ANY member of the state assembly, senate or statewide elected office. This will help create a culture of legislators not just in office to enrich themselves but to serve the people that elected them.
CREATE A SIMPLE “Let the people know” WEBSITE
As a result of the Bell scandal, the Office of the State Controller mandated all salaries of elected officials be posted online. While that move was commendable, we need to do more. I believe if done correctly, online posting of information from salaries to budgets could completely revolutionize our political system. But this information needs to be presented to the general public in a simple and understandable format. My idea is to have one consolidated website where all state, county and local government information is made available. The site would have simple categories and a simple search site. For instance, a broad category would be salaries with sub-categories for MY ASSEMBLYMEMBER or MY WATERBOARD MEMBER. For those that find it easier to ask, we would create a search engine where some one could type in {what agency sets my local water rates?} and the answer would come up. The politicians will argue that this is too much work but they’re wrong, this is a tool we need to keep people informed.
Strengthen State Auditing Power of Local Governments and Agencies
Much of the abuse of taxpayer money takes place in local agencies. Take a look at this article from the LA Times to see what I mean. Today in order to get an agency audited, the public needs go to their State Senator or Assemblymember, and that member has to approach someone from the agency in question and request the audit. That’s a lot of bureaucracy. I say bring the people into the process. We need to create a state audit website where individuals and community groups can petition for an audit. Once, the calls for the audit pass a threshold of let’s say more than fifty petitions then an independent audit committee can evaluate the legitimacy of the audit using a criteria for fiscal mismanagement or potential conflict-of-interests. If they find that the reasons for the audit are legitimate then the audit will proceed. If they find insufficient evidence for an audit then they will need to thoroughly explain in writing to the public their reasoning. That makes everyone more accountable.
