Kennedy Won't Make Personal Disclosures Yet

Caroline Kennedy has refused to disclose a variety of personal data, from which companies she has invested in to whether she has ever been charged with a crime, reports the New York Times. While candidates or sitting senators must make annual financial disclosures, potential appointees to a vacant seat have no such requirement. But good-government advocates said that Kennedy's unusually public bid had heightened expectations of transparency.

“If Governor Paterson were to choose Caroline, she would, of course, comply with all disclosure requirements,” said a Kennedy spokesman yesterday. Other contenders for the Senate seat, including Andrew Cuomo and Rep. Kirsten Gillibrand, have filed public disclosures before. "To the extent she can be more transparent, she dispels the notion that it’s all about her name," says one NYU professor. (More Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg stories.)