Assembly Leader Fabian Nunez is really committed to learning about issues of California government.  So committed, in fact, that he and five other members (John Laird, Fiona Ma, Joe Coto, Michael Duvall, and Bob Huff) are taking a trip to France to learn about trains.  Really, really fast trains.  California is considering building a high-speed rail system and France has a good high-speed rail system.

Evidently, legislators can't learn about trains by reading about them, talking to others who have ridded the trains, or by talking to French officials on the telephone.  The need to actually ride on the trains themselves. 

Other politicians are busy on trips to Japan and Tawain.  So many facts to find, so little time.

Some of the legilsators are evidently paying for the travel out of their own pocket.  If indeed part of the trip will be for personal pleasure, this is exactly the right thing to do.  Legislators work hard.  If they want to take a vacation to France on their own nickel, they deserve it.

Other legislators are paying for the travel out of their campaign funds.  This is utterly inappropriate and begins to look like they are converting campaign funds to personal use -- a big no no.  It's pretty hard to make the case that traveling to Europe is a needed expense to let voters in Yorba Linda know about where you stand on issues -- the ostensible purpose of campaign funds. 

Some of the funds (housing and meals perhaps) are being picked up by various non-profit groups, including the William Velasqez Insitute and the California Foundation for the Environment and Economy.  CFEE's board includes representatives of Chevron, PG&E, and AT&T, all of which have been heavily lobbying the legislature on issues such as alternative fuels, global warming, and telecom policy.   

Given that convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff used trips to Europe and Asia that were financed by non-profit groups as part of his illicit influence-peddling schemes that sent him to jail and brought shame upon the US Congress, constituents have a right to cast a skeptical eye on trips such as these.  If indeed these trips are purely for business purposes, legislators should do the following to ensure voters that they are working on their behalf, not simply using the trips as a personal perk and giving lobbyists a chance to ride along on the gravy train: 

1) Dislose an hour by hour itinerary of their schedule ahead of time, and invite and California constituents to join them in this fact finding on the people's behalf.  Ideally, the non-profits that are so interested in educating legislators about important policy issues would also fund one or two news reporters to join the trip so that they could educate the public at large about these important issues too (like how fast those trains really go.)

2) Provide a detailed written report of the facts that they learned on their field trip.

3) Provide a list of everyone they spoke with, including members of the non-profits who funded the trip, lobbyists, and representatives of any corporation or labor union that lobbies in California.

See the AP story here for details.   The LA Times also has a piece here regarding trips by Schwarzenegger administration officials and the Sac Bee here . 

UPDATE: After speaking about this in a TV interview that was aired by several stations, I received a call from Nunez spokesperson Steve Maviglio.  He clarified several things:

First, in regards to the Nunez lead trip to France, there are no lobbyists along for the ride.  Maviglio didn't know whether there were lobbyists on the trips to Japan or Taiwan.  He said he would e-mail me the itinerary, which I'll post when I get it.  Most of the meetings are evidently with the French government.

Second, he believes that before investing $10 billion, California should do more than just make a phone call, as I'd suggested above.  Maviglio believes it makes sense to touch and feel the product before committing to it.

Third, he points out that using campaign funds for travel purposes like this is currently legal in California.  This is correct.  That doesn't necessarily make it right, however. 

Here is the itinerary information Maviglio provided.  Note that it contains highlights, but not necessarily a complete list of who the delegation will meet with and what their hour-by-hour schedule will be:

A bipartisan delegation of Assembly members will be hosted by the Government of France to examine the European's advanced high speed rail system and discuss global warming issues from April 2-6, 2007.

 

France is the world leader in high speed rail. The California legislature has passed a $10 billion bond measure high speed rail that will appear on the November 2008 ballot and is reviewing funding issues for state's High Speed Rail Commission.

 

Speaker Fabian Nunez will be joined by Assembly members John Laird, Fiona Ma, Joe Coto, Michael Duvall, and Bob Huff.  Former U.S. Ambassador to UNESCO and U.S. Rep. Esteban Torres also will be accompanying the delegation.

 

Highlights of the visit include meetings with high-ranking French officials. They include: Secretary General Philippe Faure of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs; Christine Lagarde, Minister of Foreign Trade, Minister of Ecology and Sustainable Development Nelly Olin; Minister of Transportation, Infrastructure, Tourism and the Sea, Dominque Perben.

 

In addition, the delegation will visit ALSTOM, manufacturer of TGV trains as well as attend a meetings with SNCF (the national operator of France's high speed rail system) as well as with the President and CEO of Reseau Ferre de France (the French Railway Infrastructure System).

 

On the legislative front, the delegation will meet with the French Senate's Foreign Affairs Committee and with the President of the French National Assembly, Patrick Ollier. They also will be hosted by the U.S. Ambassador to France, Craig Roberts Stapleton.

 

On global warming, the delegation will participate in a panel discussion on global warming issues organized by the French-American Foundation and another roundtable discussion with climate change experts from the National Institute on Agrinomical Research.

 

Assembly members will be paying for their own flights and hotels. The French government and the non-profit William Velasquez Institute are providing funding for additional costs of the bipartisan delegation's trip.

 

 

 

Brian Joseph has a good article in the Orange County Registrar examining how useful it is to require disclosure of campaign contributions. 

Doug Heller, of the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights, is skeptical:

It's a forest and trees kind of issue.  When you're investigating campaign interests, you want to see trees. But with disclosure, you're creating a black forest. One of the reasons I know disclosure is problematic is because it's what all the politicians want. 

 Bob Stern, of the Center for Governmental Studies, is more supportive of California's disclosure law, which is among the toughest in the country:

 It's a good law. There's some tweaking that could be done, but not that much more.

 There may be an inherent flaw in the logic of disclosure.  The presumption, which is questionable in its own right, is that some (but not all) large contributions to politicians are problematic while othes are OK.  The ones that are a problem, the logic goes, are the ones where a politician then does something in return (like vote a donors way on a bill.)  The solution, is to disclose the donations and the actions and then let news reporters and watchdog groups try to connect the dots between donations and favors.  One problems  that can occur, however, is when reporters and watchdogs are too overwhelmed to sort through all the data (the problem Joseph deals with in his article)

But, the other problem is that in cases where the connection is most likely to be discovered and have someone blow the whistle, the donors and politicians figure out a way to dodge the disclosure.  Brian Joseph did another good piece last fall where he found that donors were dodging California's disclosure laws by offering pledges at fundraisers and then giving the cash later.  Another example would be the donations that Julie Lee illegally laundered into Kevin Shelly's campaign for Secretary of State in 2002.  Rather than giving Shelley one huge contribution from herself, she gave several contributions through other straw donors to mask the source of the money (herself.)

If we really think that some large contributions are problematic because they can unduly influence an legislator, why not ban large contributions?  Skeptics argue that laws to limit the size of contributions only cloud disclosure by causing donors to find other avenues to channel money, but if they can evade disclosure anyhow in the few instances where it is likely to be effective is this really that large a drawback?