Buggy system stuck in the 1990s needs an overhaul

by Brian Leubitz

Sometimes California Forward hits on some solid ground, like on open government and transparency. Yesterday, they joined up with Common Cause, the League of Women Voters, the Sunlight Foundation, the California Newspapers Association and  a few others to push out a letter calling for greater support for the Cal-Access website and other transparency measures.

This week a broad coalition consisting of good government groups, newspaper publishers, and lobbyists came together for one goal: fix our disclosure systems.

The thrust of the effort, led by CA Fwd, is a joint letter submitted to Governor Jerry Brown and legislators urging them to prioritize funding for modernized campaign finance (Cal-Access) and conflict of interest (Form 700) systems. In addition to accelerated funding, the letter calls for oversight of the projects to ensure milestones are met on-time and within budget or be left with projects that, as currently structured, could take years to develop at huge costs to the taxpayer.(CA FWD)

Since it crashed a few years ago right in the heart of election season, it is functional but still very janky. It needs to be brought into this decade. This isn’t a ton of data, Silicon Valley operations deal with far more data in a lot prettier way. We can do this, it isn’t rocket science. Heck, I bet you put a few computer nerds in a room with some cash for servers and a few cases of Red Bull and you would have a system that would make any activist happy.

We can do this, and it is about time it happens.