Press Releases
Libertarian Party of California Supports SB 1019

Fri, 25 May 2007

PANAROMA CITY, Calif. – While maintaining the highest respect for private personnel records, the Libertarian Party of California announced today that it formally supports SB 1019, which seeks to overturn a recent California Supreme Court decision to deny public access to disciplinary records of police officers.

The decision in Copley Press v. Superior Court (2006) effectively deprived the public of access to police records and hearings. SB 1019 would overturn Copley Press and restore the limited public access to police complaint records and hearings that was in place before the court decision.

Kevin Takenaga, chair of the Libertarian Party of California, issued the following statement:

"While employee records should be protected by some measure of confidentiality, it is clearly more important in the case of government employees in general, and police in particular, to allow limited public examination of records, including charges of misconduct.

"The Libertarian Party of California supports the hard work and dedication of law enforcement officers in the state. Nevertheless, taxpayers are forced by government to pay the salary of law enforcement personnel. Therefore, it is only appropriate that they have a means to scrutinize the relatively few, but important, police misconduct and disciplinary issues that unfortunately arise from time to time.

"The Libertarian Party of California joins with the American Civil Liberties Union, the California Newspaper Publishers Association, Taxpayers for Improving Public Safety and others in endorsing the passage of SB 1019."