|
Contributor
John
Campbell
John
Campbell (R-Irvine) is an Assemblyman representing the 70th
District
in Orange County. Mr. Campbell is the Vice-Chairman of the Assembly
Budget Committee. He is the only CPA in the California State
legislature
and recently received a national award as Freshman Republican
Legislator of the Year. He represents the cities of Newport
Beach,
Laguna Beach, Irvine, Costa Mesa, Tustin, Aliso Viejo, Laguna
Woods and Lake Forest. He can be reached through his Assembly
website
and through the website
for his California Senate campaign. [go to Campbell index]
 Hot
Pension Potato
McClintock goes after Davis union giveaways...
[John Campbell] 6/21/04
During
the Davis administration, one of the many handouts from the
Davis Democrats to their union boss friends
was one that gave to 3200 other state workers the same extremely
generous pension plan that police officers receive. These workers
are supposedly "public safety officers" but they include
such job classifications as milk testers and billboard inspectors.
(You probably didn't even know that your tax dollars were paying
for such positions, did you?)
Anyway, Senator McClintock has a bill (SB9) to repeal this 25%
increase in these pensions. The increase is scheduled to go into
effect July 1, 2004 so time is of the essence. The pension increase
would cost $11 million this year and $216 million over the next
20 years.
Almost everyone in the capitol knows that repeal is the right
thing to do. Milk testers are not police officers and do not
deserve one of the most generous pensions on the planet. But
the Assembly Democrats refused to act on the bill this week,
instead sending it back to the Senate. The Senate Democrats literally
locked the door to the Senate so the bill could not go to them.
So, it is still in the Assembly and still not being acted upon.
Why is this bill such a hot potato to Democrats? Because it
is opposed by the union that represents these 3200 workers. This
is an extremely powerful union that makes heavy campaign contributions,
and the Davis Democrats in the legislature do not want to cross
them. So, the Senate and the Assembly keep kicking the ball back
to each other because neither one wants to be the first to vote
against this union.
Even the relatively liberal editorial page of the Sacramento
Bee knows that repealing this pension is the right thing to do.
Most Democrats know it too. But they fear a vote against a union.
By the way, most of the Democrats currently in the legislature
voted to make this pension increase law in the first place. It
is only because of the election of Arnold Schwarzenegger that
this issue is even on the table.
If something this obvious is this hard for Davis Democrats to
vote against a union, you can imagine how often they ever deny
any other union request. Almost never.
That is why we have a budget crisis. As I have said before,
the public employee unions are the most pernicious force in California
government.
Their power is hugely
out of proportion to the small percentage of the workforce
in California that they represent. They are
paid with your tax money, which they then take part of to make
huge campaign contributions to directly influence the very people
who decide what they are paid. This is a direct conflict of interest
and it should not be allowed. The SB9 "hot potato" is
just another in a long line of examples to show why. CRO
§
|
