CalMatters won second place for the Collier Award for State Government Accountability

from Sonya BarzaCalMatters

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CalMatters won second place for Collier Awardwhich recognizes coverage focused on state government institutions.

The award is administered by the University of Florida’s College of Journalism and Communication and is announced at a White House Correspondents’ Association dinner. The award recognizes the best professional reporting in the US on government accountability across all types of media.

CalMatters reporters Robert Lewis and Lauren Hepler won for “License to kill,” an investigation by the California Department of Motor Vehicles. The report revealed that although California’s DMV has the authority to investigate drivers who cause fatal crashes, it rarely does so — with tragic results.

CalMatters found that the DMV routinely allows drivers to stay behind the wheel despite horrific histories of dangerous driving, including DUIs, crashes and multiple fines. Some continued to kill. Many continued to drive even after killing someone. Some went on to kill again.

There was no central database of vehicular homicide cases to look at, so CalMatters built one — sending reporters to courthouses in all 58 counties and spending nearly $20,000 on public records. From that database, reporters Lewis and Hepler presented a series of stories revealing how government officials—DMV leaders, judges, elected officials, prosecutors, police and court officials—routinely allow dangerous drivers to operate in California.

Since then, nearly 200 drivers who have killed someone on the road have had their driving privileges suspended or revoked, and more than 30 counties have pledged to begin reporting manslaughter convictions to the DMV. Legislation is in the works in Sacramento.

In FebruaryA bipartisan group of lawmakers has announced an unprecedented legislative package aimed at challenging California’s road safety permit laws. To date, 16 bills have been introduced, many of which have publicly cited CalMatters’ findings as inspiration.

“The Capitol community is paying more attention to him because of the investigative reporting,” Schultz said, “and I think that’s a good thing.” Congratulations to the other winners: first place, KARE 11 of Minneapolis for “Housing turmoil,” his investigation of Medicare fraud in Minnesota, and third, the Tampa Bay Times and Miami Herald’s joint Capital Bureau for “Hope Florida,” a series of stories that reveal how Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration orchestrated the transfer of $10 of public money to one of First Lady Casey DeSantis’ favorite projects — the Hope Florida Foundation.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and is republished under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives license.