During Democrat Rep. Robert Garcia’s time as mayor of Long Beach, California, an independent audit found that under his watch, a sizable number of city employees—including in his office—didn’t provide required financial disclosure forms or receive required ethics training.
Garcia is the incoming chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee and will lead investigations of President Donald Trump’s administration.
“Of the 1,285 City positions required by State law to file financial disclosure forms, 277, or 21.6 percent, filed late or not at all as of March 2019,” the audit, released in August 2020, says.
The audit said this was a problem across “60 City departments,” including the mayor’s office, and added the city does not “impose any fines or penalties for failure to comply, as some cities do.” It called for creating a local fine structure for city officials who fail to disclose gifts from lobbyists, the Long Beach Post reported.
Almost half of those who didn’t file the disclosures were leaving the job, but were still required to file the reports to ensure no conflicts of interest while they held their jobs, the audit noted.
The audit also reported that 16.2% of those required to take ethics training were “out of compliance as of early 2019,” with 22 people not completing training since 2015 and two of them since 2012.
As mayor of Long Beach, there is little evidence in public documents or in local news accounts that Garcia commented or took action on the survey.
He signed onto a statement in 2018 to support a ballot measure that would create an independent ethics commission. After the measure passed, the city contracted an independent audit of the the municipal employees’ ethics culture.
When Garcia left the mayor’s office for Congress in December 2022, the city had several major ethics reforms in place, such as the establishment of the ethics commission. However, the commission’s November 2022 action plansaid the city had yet to provide it full structure and staffing; had yet to establish quarterly reporting on complaints and case outcomes; and lacked a way for reviewing conflicts-of-interest.
In a separate matter in September 2021, the California Fair Political Practices Commission warned one of Mayor Garcia’s political committees of allegations that it violated political advertising disclosure requirements. The commission determined it was not intentional and closed the case without a fine.
A spokesperson for Garcia’s congressional office did not respond to inquiries from the Daily Signal this week. A spokesperson for the city of Long Beach also did not comment for this story.
On election night, when it was clear Democrats won a House majority, Garcia issued a statement warning Trump administration officials, “Lawyer up.”
Garcia also posted on X, “When they go low, this is me,” with a picture of a clown from the horror film “It.” Also, during an event last week, he said: “We’re not going to forget about these people who are causing harm. I’m gay, but like, pettiness is a thing,” The Advocate reported.
On Wednesday, White House counsel Will Scharf warned Garcia in a letter that congressional Democrats are making “abusive and capricious threats” against the Trump administration.
“The Administration will not be extorted and will not be cowed by unlawful processes motivated by animus, pettiness, hatred, or any other unlawful motive to intimidate, penalize, or interfere with the lawful functioning of government,” Scharf wrote.
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[ H/T The Daily Signal ]
