Politics & Government
Portantino Tops List of Assembly's Biggest Spenders
In Assembly records released Friday, Anthony Portantino, who has publicly fought against the Legislature's "lack of transparency,'' was shown to spend more than any other individual Assembly member. He balks at the statistics.
Weeks after the Los Angeles Times and The Sacramento Bee filed a lawsuit against the California State Assembly to compel public disclosure of current office budget and spending records, the Senate and Assembly has released member-by-member spending records.
Friday's release - which shows the total expenditure of Assemblyman Anthony Portantino (D-La Cañada) from the past eight months to be the highest in the Assembly - follows that would force the Legislature to open its books.
"If these documents were not posted on the Assembly’s web page, I would think they were an April fool’s joke,'' Portantino said in a prepared statement.
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"The documents released hide true and accurate accounting of staff budgets and complete staff expenditures. I once again implore Assembly leaders to come clean and open the Assembly to true transparency. The documents released today are an insult to the public.”
Portantino and Assembly Speaker John Perez have at each other since Portantino . Democratic party leaders slashed Portantino's budget and issued furlough notices for his staff.
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In an interview with the , Perez's press secretary John Vigna said, “The fact is that we have released every penny spent by the Assembly for last year and this year up to July.
“Mr. Portantino has been grandstanding throughout this whole event, and now he’s acting like Donald Trump acted when the president’s birth certificate got released.”
You may find the Assembly's 2010 spending here and the 2011 year-to-date spending here.
While Portantino could not be reached Friday night, his press secretary, Wendy Gordon, told Patch that the numbers released Friday, which show that Portantino spent more than any other Assembly member from Dec. 1, 2010 to July 31, 2011 - including Perez, who has a larger staff - are "smoke and mirrors.''
Biggest Spenders Individually of the California State Assembly, based on data released from Assembly Speaker John Perez:
#1 Anthony Portantino, $297,579.99
#2 Mike Feuer, $293,736.85
#3 Ricardo Lara, $289.723.08
#4 Charles Calderon, $284,497.24
#5 Felipe Fuentes, $282,016.90
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