A Sacramento County Superior Court Judge has ordered further briefing in a lawsuit filed against the office of State Controller Betty Yee, which seeks the production of state spending records under the California Public Records Act (PRA).
"We've been asking the California Controller for a line-by-line record of state expenditures since 2013,” Adam Andrzejewski, CEO and Founder of OpenTheBooks.com, said in an email response to the Northern California Record. “Their responses are best described as gaslighting. They never cited statutory authority to reject our request – they just basically said go away and stopped responding."
Under the California Constitution, the Controller must ensure that state expenditures comply with state law.
Judge Stephen M. Gevercer issued the order in American Transparency v. California State Controller (SCO) on Sept. 8. OpenTheBooks.com is a project of American Transparency – a 501(c)3 nonprofit, nonpartisan charitable organization.
"We work with some of the most corrupt units of government in the country -- the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, the State Government of Illinois, and the municipal government of Washington, D.C. Even these governments produce an annual ‘checkbook’ register of their expenditures," Andrzejewski said.
Judge Gevercer’s order notes that the “SCO is responsible for accountability and disbursement of California's financial resources.”
In response to American Transparency’s Aug. 23, 2019, public records request for vendor payments and other spending information under the PRA, the Controller six weeks later said it was “unable to comply.”
American Transparency then filed its Petition for Writ of Mandate and Complaint for Declaratory and Injunctive Relief, for which it is seeking summary judgment.
"It shouldn't take a subpoena or a court case to force open line-by-line state spending,” Andrzejewski said. “Our lawsuit seeks a basic disclosure of each public payment the controller made last year. 49 states easily understand our public records request and are able to produce the required expenditures."
Judge Gevercer noted in the order, “The PRA is construed broadly in favor of access, and exemptions from disclosure must be narrowly construed.”
It remains unclear why the Controller has not produced the public records requested.
The Controller’s office did not reply to a request for comment from the Record.
“The Courts rejects the SCO's superficial claim that it is simply too burdensome to search for records, when some, in fact, exist,” Judge Gevercer wrote in the order.
The next court date is scheduled for Sept. 24.
"The California Controller tested our will and wallet,” Andrzejewski said. “However, this isn't our first rodeo. In 2012, we sued Illinois and opened seven years of state spending. In 2018, we sued Wyoming and opened six years. We expect to win in California as well."