Posted on 11/11/2005 11:12:35 AM PST by NormsRevenge
SACRAMENTO (AP) - Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has dropped the fight against one of his most vocal critics, deciding to stop battling the California Nurses Association over hospital staffing ratios.
Attorney General Bill Lockyer filed a motion late Thursday on behalf of the governor's office that withdrew the state's appeal of an earlier court ruling. In June, a Sacramento County Superior Court judge ruled that the administration erred when it issued an emergency order a year ago seeking to delay a first-in-the-nation law requiring hospitals to provide more nurses.
The governor's office filed an appeal shortly after with the state 3rd District Court of Appeal.
Schwarzenegger's office on Friday referred calls to state Department of Health and Human Services spokeswoman Nicole Evans. She did not immediately return a telephone message from The Associated Press. A spokesman in Lockyer's office had no immediate comment.
The governor's action came two days after voters rejected all of his proposed initiatives during the special election and on the same day he took "full responsibility" for the election debacle.
The lower patient-to-nurse staffing ratio was not among the issues decided at the ballot box Tuesday but has been a long-sought goal of the 60,000-member nurses union.
Its members were incensed about Schwarzenegger's challenge to the 1999 law establishing the lower ratios. The union has been a constant nemesis of the governor's this year, protesting at nearly every public event he held, including fundraisers in New York and Boston.
The law limited nursing coverage to no more than five patients at a time. Shortly after the November 2004 elections, Schwarzenegger sided with the hospital industry and challenged the law in court. He wanted to continue the existing six-to-one ratio, citing the financial burden to hospitals and a nursing shortage.
"We think the governor's in a strategic retreat," said Rose Ann DeMoro, the nurse's association executive director. "Of course we're pleased with that decision, but in other ways we're a little bit dubious" about his intentions.
Tensions between the governor and the nurses union escalated in December when he labeled the union a special interest and said he was "kicking their butts." Since then, the union has attacked Schwarzenegger at public events, in television commercials and on freeway billboards throughout the state.
In a September interview with The Associated Press, Schwarzenegger said his comment was a mistake and called the reaction to it a learning experience.
California is the only state with a law requiring a mandatory staffing level for hospitals. The 1999 law, signed by then-Gov. Gray Davis, required the state Department of Health Services to establish ratios. They were set at one nurse for every six patients by Jan. 1, 2004, and one nurse for every five patients by Jan. 1, 2005.
Schwarzenegger's lawsuit sought to delay the lower ratio until 2008. The administration said it needed further study, particularly considering a statewide shortage of nurses.
BTW, the "nursing shortage" will continue for the foreseeable future. It's how the CNA keeps control over pay scale, benefits and overall bargaining power.
Just another example of the utter stupidity of the rats in power in Sacramento and their absolute slavish devotion to giving the unions everything they want.
These people truly believed that all that would happen is that more nurses would be hired and everything else would remain the same. Stupid selfish unions just eliminated the jobs of the people who most helped the nurses do their jobs. Now the nurses get to lift all the heavy people and wipe all their asses (literally) on their own.
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