SACRAMENTO — State Senate officials have secretly approved a $70,000 legal settlement that prohibits a staffer who accused a former colleague of harassment from going public with the charges.
The payment, made last month, is the latest in a string of such settlements, most of which include confidentiality clauses that keep taxpayers in the dark about what exactly they are paying to settle and why.
The agreement, obtained by The Times through open-records laws, does not identify the staffer alleged to have engaged in misconduct or the nature of the misconduct. It demands that the accuser not "in any way publicize the terms or amount of this agreement unless required by law" and says she is to respond to questions "by stating words to the effect that 'the matter has been resolved.' "
Such deals raise "a serious question about using public funds to pay for silence," said Terry Francke, general counsel for Californians Aware, a group advocating open government. "Buying the ignorance of the public with public money seems contrary to the spirit of open government. It seems a kind of betrayal of public trust."
The $70,000 was paid to Allison Bonburg, who was a field representative for U.S. Rep. Tom McClintock when he was a GOP state senator from Thousand Oaks. McClintock, who was elected to Congress in November from a Northern California district, is not the alleged harasser, a legislative source said.
McClintock was not available for comment, according to a spokeswoman.
Senate officials would not release details from Bonburg's complaint. Senate leader Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento), who has promised more transparency in government and chairs the committee that entered into the settlement with her, refused to discuss the case.
"Personnel matters are confidential," said Steinberg spokeswoman Alicia Trost.
Lawmakers have repeatedly kept workplace misconduct claims secret, releasing only the settlement papers -- and only when requests are made citing state records law. The agreements are not adopted at public meetings or included in public files, as other legislative business is.
Other government entities in California, including the city of Los Angeles, do not keep secret the details of such deals. The open-records law forbids it.
But in passing the 1968 law, the Legislature specifically exempted itself. It approved a separate Legislative Open Records Act, which broadly exempts from public disclosure "records of complaints to or investigations conducted by . . . the Legislature."
