The Senate Rules Committee has appointed former Democrat senator Michael Machado to a seat on the board of directors of the State Compensation Insurance Fund. The appointment seems appropriate given that it was Machado who authored SB 1145, a bill that required SCIF to comply with California’s Public Records Act and the Bagley-Keene Open Meeting Act.

SCIF has already conducted one public meeting and another is scheduled for this week.

Machado served as the chairman of the Senate Banking and Insurance Committee and conducted a hearing targeting SCIF’s management last year. The hearings and legislation were in response to a series of highly publicized scandals two years ago, calling into question the competence and ethics of SCIF management.

It was AB 1874 authored by Joe Coto (D-San Jose), that expanded SCIF’s board from five directors to 11, nine of whom are appointed by the governor. One member is appointed by the Speaker of the Assembly to represent organized labor, and Rules appoints a member that has either been a policy holder of SCIF or an employee or officer of a SCIF policy holder.

Sources say that the governor is expected to name the additional board members before this week’s meeting. 

-30-