Offspring shouldn’t benefit from elected parent’s actions, lawmaker says

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Alarmed by reports that elected officials throughout California are voting on matters that could benefit their relatives, a state lawmaker has introduced legislation that would restrict the practice.

Assemblyman Tony Mendoza (D-Artesia) said he introduced AB 785 partly in response to reports by the Los Angeles Times that Supervisor Don Knabe voted as a member of the Los Angeles County Coliseum Commission to allow ‘rave’ concerts to continue at that stadium after the lobbying firm of his son, Matt Knabe, represented a rave operator.

‘This is not prohibited by current law,’ Mendoza said. ‘I want to make sure officials abstain from voting when an immediate family member has a financial interest in the outcome of an issue under the jurisdiction of that official.’

Mendoza’s bill would significantly expand conflict-of-interest rules. His measure would create a disqualifying conflict of interest for an elected official voting on a matter if that official’s spouse, child, parent, sibling, or the spouse of the child ‘has a financial interest in any contract made by that public official.’

Matt Knabe is a partner in Englander, Knabe and Allen, a lobbying and public affairs firm whose clients included rave operator Insomniac Inc., which has used the Coliseum. Matt Knabe said he did not personally lobby on the rave issue — it was handled by another employee of his firm — and he has not lobbied his father on the matter. ‘That is the bottom line,’ he said.

Supervisor Knabe also voted to require bidding on a data-mining contract for which one potential bidder is IBM, another client of Matt Knabe’s lobbyist firm, The Times reported.

Harvey Englander, another partner in the lobbying firm, said the Mendoza bill was unnecessary and noted that the law already requires disclosure of lobbying activity.

Englander criticized Mendoza for spending time on the legislation that he said could be better spent solving the state’s $25-billion budget shortfall. ‘He needs to focus on what’s important,’ Englander said, ‘and not grandstand for headlines.’

-- Patrick McGreevy