U.S. Rep. Bob Brady isn't the only one to be caught in the net for failing to fully disclose his assets and income on his state financial disclosure form.
According to The Next Mayor web site, there were nine suits filed in Philadelphia this election season alleging that candidates omitted one item for another. At leat one candidate -- Jacques Whaumbush, a Democrat running for Sheriff -- was thrown off the ballot by a judge for his failure to disclose.
Why the sudden spate of suits? Two reasons: for one thing, the Supreme Court in two recent rulings has taken a hard-line on disclosures. It threw two candidates off the ballot because of failure to list all: John Braxton, a former judge running for City Controller and Vern Anastasio, who was making his first run for City Council.
The other reason is that it is much easier today to find if a candidate has assets or income he failed to list thanks to electronic data bases. The column I did on Sunday about candidates who owe back taxes was based entirely on information available on databases, most of them free and open to the public.
The fact is, it is much harder today to hide information about your personal finances than it was in 1978, when the state's disclosure law first passed. Today, you can go online to find out about a candidate's taxes owed, leins, civil suits, investment properties, criminal records, divorce proceedings..this list could go on.
This information has always been public, but it was (believe me) a laborious process to undercover it. I can give you one example from the past. Suppose you wanted to find out if you owned taxes on your principal property? In Philly, that would involve a hike to the basement of the Municipal Services Building to a counter where a (grumpy) guard would preside over many volumes of books cataloguing back taxes.
You would hand him an address. He would fish around the books. He would write down an amount if it was overdue and hand it back to you. He would not tell you how long the money was owed nor for what years taxes were in arrears.
Now, if you want to find out about a candidate's taxes -- or your neighbors! -- it's as easy matter.
Go to the city Revenue Department web site, type in the exact address and up it will come, a complete list of taxes owed. The list is updated each weeknight so it is timely.
Ditto for civil suits filed. You can go to the Philadelphia Courts web site, type in the last and first name of your choice and it will deliver summaries of suits dating back 20 years. For more details, you must go to City Hall and retrieve the files.
Recently, the courts also added information about past and current criminal cases, though that web site is tougher to use.
Data on other assets can be retreived by using LexisNexis, a vast storehouse of data. This is a fee-based site (you must subcribe to the service) but a number of public libraries do have subscriptions.
Now that you know, you can go forth and do your own investigative reporting.
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