‘Behind a barrier’: Should Delaware officials’ financial disclosure reports be posted on state’s integrity website?

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Earlier this year, Delaware state Rep. Madinah Wilson-Anton became curious about the financial interests of a fellow Delaware lawmaker.

So she went to the website of the state’s Public Integrity Commission. That’s the government body, known as the PIC, which receives and keeps the financial disclosure statements filed annually by some 350 elected and appointed state officials and candidates for Delaware office.

Beyond politicians, those who must file include judges, members of the governor’s cabinet and directors of state divisions.

The reports contain oodles of information, though not exact dollar amounts, about the economic situation of the official and their spouse: sources of income, investments, business ventures, creditors, gifts received and positions on boards.

Under Delaware law, the filings are public documents. But when Wilson-Anton searched the PIC’s website for the lawmaker’s reports, they were nowhere to be found.

That’s because to see the reports, the Bear-area Democrat had to file a Freedom of Information Act request with the state.

Wilson-Anton said that requirement is ridiculous — that the reports should be posted online, for viewing by anyone, at any time.

“That kind of weirded me out because I’ve submitted reports now for five years, maybe even six years at this point,” Wilson-Anton said. “And I always filled them out with the understanding that they were public documents and they were meant for the public to understand where I make money from.”

“I didn’t realize that it was behind a FOIA wall,” she said. “I thought it was just online the way that lobbyist reports are online and searchable. It seems like a no-brainer to me. I think Delawareans should be able to just go online and look and not have to know something’s up and then request to learn more.”

So Wilson-Anton, now in her third two-year term in the House, decided to seek a change. In May, she introduced a bill that would require the PIC to post all financial disclosure reports on its website.

Her effort gained a powerful ally — Senate President Pro-Tem Dave Sokola — who signed on as a sponsor. The PIC also supports the bill.

Sokola told WHYY News in a written statement that the “straightforward bill increases transparency and public trust. As elected officials, we must hold ourselves to the highest standard of objectivity and transparency.”

“But from time to time, there may be something in our personal lives or among the lives of our relatives that presents a conflict of interest,” the statement reads. “I sponsored this legislation to simply say that we owe it to the public to be transparent about any conflicts of interest — whether perceived or real.”

Transparency advocates support online access

The measure didn’t get a committee hearing until late June, however.

During that 20-minute session, some attendees, including government transparency advocates,  spoke in favor of the bill.

Katherine Ward, of the Delaware Coalition for Open Government and Delaware Press Association, said the bill “expresses the intent to be the lynchpin that will strengthen transparency and accountability at the Public Integrity Commission.”

Another supporter was Newark resident Amy Roe, who has advocated for a variety of issues, including the need to remove lead from water in school fountains.

“FOIA is incredibly burdensome. It is time-consuming. It is difficult to navigate and in many cases it is excessively costly for the public,” Roe told lawmakers. “Open government is good government. These reports already belong to the people and we shouldn’t have to jump through the hurdles of FOIA to obtain basic reports.”

The only discordant note at the hearing was sounded by state Rep. Jeffrey Spiegelman, a Kent County Republican.

Spiegelman wondered how burdensome the FOIA application was, and whether, for example, requesters had to specify whether they were looking to see if the officials had “child support in arrears” or for other financial information, such as mortgages.

“Is it targeted for a reason or is it just kind of a carte blanche: ‘We want this report just because we want it?’” Spiegelman asked.

While Spiegelman’s question doesn’t address the heart of the bill — whether the reports should be on the PICs website — the answer is that the state’s FOIA application does not require requesters to specify why they want any public record or what they are looking for in the documents.

All the state requires is that the information being sought is identified with enough specificity that it can be located, and if it’s deemed a public document, provided.

WHYY News has obtained Delaware officials’ financial disclosure reports periodically in recent years, and every time requested the reports without saying why they were being sought. For this story, WHYY News obtained all of the reports filed for 2024. Those reports can be viewed here in one file, with the officials’ names in alphabetical order.

While Wilson-Anton pointed out during the hearing that the spending reports filed by registered lobbyists are already posted on the PIC website, Spiegelman also suggested he was not convinced that is a valid reason to also post reports by public officials.

“They’re not asking the lobbyist to disclose their personal finances,” Spiegelman said.

The House panel did advance the bill to the full House for a possible vote, but the measure never made it to the floor before the General Assembly adjourned for the year in the early morning hours of July 1.

Wilson-Anton said she’s undeterred, and believes there’s plenty of support to get the bill passed when lawmakers resume their work in January.

“I think it has good chances,” she said. “That’s going to be top of the list when we come back in January. I’m excited to move it forward.”

“It’s information that citizens have access to right now, it’s just behind a barrier,” she said. “And I think the more transparency, the better. It’s also important that when members are voting on bills that directly impact them, that it’d be easy for members of the public to check and point out when there’s unethical behavior happening.”