Attorney General's Office in Need of Greater Transparency

FLASHREPORT
April 17, 2008
By Jon Coupal, President of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association

This year’s budget fiasco demonstrates once again that the interests of California taxpayers are rarely reflected in our government’s spending decisions. While some lawmakers are touring the state reminding citizens that their children’s education is at stake, Attorney General Jerry Brown is filing lawsuits against anyone he can accuse of emitting too much greenhouse gas – including federal, county and city governments. When Brown sued the County of San Bernardino earlier this year, just one of a number of such lawsuits, taxpayers there were forced to fund both sides of the case. It is difficult to see how the people of California come out ahead when they are forced to sue themselves.

Regardless of one’s stand on global warming, the extent to which greenhouse gases contribute to it or the propriety of the state’s attorney general attempting to regulate it, the logic behind this approach to litigation is perverse. The taxpayers’ interest cannot be served through this strategy of regulating city and county governments by suing them and the taxpayers who fund them. ... What’s a taxpayer to do? Well, we can start by adopting simple proposals for reform. The American Tort Reform Association (ATRA) has set forth a Transparency Code that it hopes attorneys general nationwide will voluntarily adopt. That code includes no-brainers such as committing to post all contracts with vendors, including outside counsel, on a website for public inspection.

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