Hope can be pesky, ill-advised and laughable.
But it can also be the feeling that keeps you from biting through your lip and tearing out your hair in frustration.
When California State Senator Mark Leno’s SB 1286—a bill that provided for greater transparency from public employees gasped its last breath in a committee hearing last month—the initial familiar feeling of disappointment was eventually replaced by one of hope. As in, I hope someone else in the Senate or Assembly introduces a similar bill that grants taxpayers the right to know what they are paying for.
It would be fair to characterize that one as a laughable hope.
While most Americans and Californians are in favor of accountability of tax dollars and government transparency there is an elite cadre of public employees that are seemingly exempt from closer, deserved scrutiny.
The police.
(And it is right about here where rabidly unreasonable men and women are starting to believe this will be an anti-cop, pro-bad guys screed).
In short, SB 1286 would have made public record the actions of all the bad guys who wear a badge, carry a gun, break the law and the public’s trust.
It would have granted access to records investigating police misconduct, officer involved shootings and other uses of force.
It would have made the habitual, flagrant and documented behavior of Dirty Larry available to the public, the same people who he is paid to protect and who help pay for his salary and tools of the trade.
SB 1286 would have made it easier for people to know and keep track of the bad cops—yes, as in any profession there are bad practitioners—who roam from jurisdiction to jurisdiction or from the public to private sector without consequence.
It would have allowed someone who has a substantive complaint against an officer to know the outcome of an internal investigation without having to incur the cost and headache of legal action.
It would have created more transparency and created another bond of trust.
It would have been good for the public and cops, at least the good ones.
But the bill was opposed vociferously and strongly by law enforcement unions and they claimed, as they tend to do, that by making such information available to the public officer safety would be jeopardized, opening them up to retribution.
They argued it was a stunt to capitalize on what they perceive as an “anti-cop” atmosphere that is growing in this country.
What they and legislators who suffocated this bill refuse to acknowledge is SB 1286 and (hopefully) future bills like it are not anti-cop.
They are pro-accountability which, in itself, is pro-good police. That is something deserving of hope.
