Want to know more about legislators’ financial reports? This News Journal database will tell you

From The News Journal

Every year in Delaware, state lawmakers have to disclose their personal financial interests to prove they are making decisions in the best interest of the public and not themselves.

Because those records aren’t easily available to the public, The News Journal has rounded them up and published the forms for all 62 members of the General Assembly. The disclosures, which were submitted in the spring, list officials’ investments, debts and sources of income in 2018.

The contents of those statements are available through our disclosure database. You can look up your representative and senator’s disclosures in the database by typing in either the lawmaker’s name or your address.

In the process of creating the database, The News Journal found that some lawmakers left off income sources, investments and board memberships in their initial statements, which are not independently audited or checked for accuracy once they are submitted.

“They (public officials) certify that it’s true when they submit it,” said Deborah Moreau, attorney for the state-funded Public Integrity Commission who collects the disclosures every year. “We take them at their word that whatever is on that form is true.”

After The News Journal alerted lawmakers that the contents of their disclosures would be published online, seven of them — Reps. Stephanie Bolden, D-Wilmington East; Melissa Minor-Brown, D-New Castle; David Bentz, D-Christiana; Paul Baumbach, D-Newark; Lyndon Yearick, R-Camden-Wyoming; Debra Heffernan, D-Bellefonte and House Majority Leader Valerie Longhurst, D-Bear — have amended and resubmitted their forms to the Public Integrity Commission.

 

Read more:

https://www.delawareonline.com/story/news/politics/2019/11/14/new-journal-database-tells-you-delaware-lawmakerss-finances/2517151001/