Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/392281
ByJudyLin The Associated Press SACRAMENTO Citing broad exemptions under California's legislative re- cords law, the state Senate is keeping secret a taxpayer- funded report about Capitol staff hiring friends and rel- atives despite calls by law- makers, statewide candi- dates and public interest groups that it be released. Peter Scheer, execu- tive director of the First Amendment Coalition, said the Legislature's special re- cords law should be re- named "the California Leg- islative Secrecy Law" be- cause it grants lawmakers protections that no other public body has available. "It's very disturbing," Scheer said of the nep- otism report being kept from public view. "It is le- gal confirmation of cit- izens' suspicions about the Legislature — that the only principle that seems to guide the Legislature is hypocrisy." Earlier this year, Sen- ate President Pro Tem Dar- rell Steinberg hired an out- side attorney to review al- legations that senior staff abused their authority by playing favorites on new hires. The review was to in- clude whether the Senate's human resources director, Dina Hidalgo, had violated Senate policy because five members of her family work in the Capitol and at least three people got jobs after playingonhersoftballteam. The Senate last week de- nied a formal request by The Associated Press un- der the Legislative Open Records Act for a copy of the nepotism investi- gation, which was con- ducted by Heather Irwin of the law firm of Gordon & Rees LLP. According to a response last week from Secretary of the Senate Greg Schmidt, the Senate paid more than $98,000 for the report. The response to the AP stated that the report was exempt from disclosure be- cause it was in the custody of the Senate's attorneys, has attorney-client privi- lege and pertained to an investigation or complaint of the Legislature. Schmidt also denied AP's request for a copy of a separate investigation into the management of Senate security, known as the Office of the Sergeant- at-Arms, an investigation that cost taxpayers more than $41,000. That review was driven by a criminal case involving Hidalgo's son, Gerardo Lopez, who worked in the Capitol's se- curity force. He was fired after an investigation re- vealed that he was high on cocaine during a gun- fight outside his Sacra- mento home. Longtime Chief Ser- geant-at-Arms Tony Beard stepped down earlier this year for keeping silent about Lopez testing posi- tive for illegal drugs. The Sacramento Bee was the first to report on details of the shooting case and questionable hires. Steinberg said during a media briefing in August that he planned to release the nepotism study before the Legislature adjourned for the year at the end of the month. Since then, a biparti- san Senate committee ap- proved a separation agree- ment with Hidalgo in which the legislative body agreed to pay her $85,400 and pledged to keep that re- port secret. Steinberg said he understood the need for transparency but called the move to keep the report out of the public eye "justified." Scheer said the Senate can't hide documents un- der the custody of the Leg- islative Council's Office, and he said Hidalgo's sep- aration agreement would not be a sufficient basis to withhold the report. SACRAMENTO Legislature withholds report on nepotism By Christopher S. Rugaber The Associated Press WASHINGTON Just how healthy is the U.S. job mar- ket? Despite steady hiring and falling unemployment, the question has provoked sharp debate and consid- erable uncertainty on the eve of the September jobs report. Will millions without jobs who aren't looking for one eventually start look- ing? Why aren't companies filling more of their open- ings? Why can many people find only part-time work? Much of the uncertainty flows from a big question: Does today's 6.1 percent un- employment rate, far below the 10 percent it hit in 2009, mean the job market is near full health? Or does the un- employment rate overstate the improvement? The answers, whenever they come, could play a key role in when the Federal Re- serve decides to finally raise interest rates. "We're kind of grasping at straws," says Peter Cap- pelli, an economist at the Wharton Business School. "We've never seen a labor market quite like this." The government's Sep- tember jobs report, com- ing Friday, may shed some light on these questions. But it won't settle them. Here are four mysteries about the job market: • How many people who have stopped looking for work — or never started — will start looking if the economy improves further? This, perhaps more than any other question, has con- founded economists. Since the Great Recession began in late 2007, the proportion of adults either working or seeking work has sunk from 66 percent to 62.8 percent — a 35-year low. That's equal to about 7.5 million fewer people. But a debate has raged over how many of them are waiting for the economy to strengthen further before they look. At least half the exodus is due to retirements by the vast baby boom gener- ation. Younger adults are now also likely to stay in school. And some jobless people who aren't seeking work are now receiving dis- ability aid. • What's happened to 3.8 million people who had been unemployed for over six months but no longer are? The decline in long-term unemployed is encourag- ing. But here's what we don't know: How many of them have actually gotten jobs? And how many have just given up looking and so are no longer counted as unemployed? Labor Department fig- ures show that no more than about 12 percent of the long-term unemployed are finding jobs in any given month — below pre-reces- sion levels of about 18 per- cent. But two Fed economists who studied changes over a full year found a brighter picture: Over a 12-month period, nearly 40 percent of the long-term unemployed find jobs. Only about 32 per- cent drop out. • What does it mean that so many people — 7.3 mil- lion — who want full-time jobs can find only part-time work? Before the recession, this figure was just 4.6 million. Levin, the IMF economist, thinks it shows there are lots more people who want additional work than the unemployment rate sug- gests. He estimates that the ranks of so-called involun- tary part-timers are equiva- lent to an additional 1 point in the unemployment rate. As a result, Levin argues, paychecks aren't likely to rise anytime soon. • Companies are adver- tising lots more jobs. So why aren't they filling more of them? The number of available jobs has fully recovered from the recession. Yet to- tal hiring hasn't. An index compiled by Steven Davis, a University of Chicago economist, in- dicates that companies aren't trying to fill jobs as fast they were before the recession. Companies took an average of nearly 25 days to fill a job in July 2014, up from fewer than 22 in 2006. UNEMPLOYMENT 4 mysteries of job market waiting to be solved MELEVANS—THEASSOCIATEDPRESSFILE Former Revel Hotel Casino employee, Fatuma Kamara, foreground right, holds her 11-month-old baby Mussa as she gets help from Kristanna Brown in filing for unemployment benefits, during a mass unemployment filing for newly laid-off casino workers, in Atlantic City, N.J. * *#*$ * **$ * ** * * *$ *( & * * *'* *( * * * * $ * *$ *$ ** ! 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