California lawmakers to sue John Chiang over their pay

SacBee: Capitol Alert ^ | 1/24/12 | Kevin Yamamura

[SmithL]

Democratic legislative leaders sued Controller John Chiang today for blocking their pay during last year's budget dispute, a decision that drew scorn from lawmakers last summer.

Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg and Assembly Speaker John A. Pérez said the Democratic controller overstepped his bounds when he decided that lawmakers sent Gov. Jerry Brown a flawed budget last June and docked their pay. They said they are not suing for back earnings, but to ask the court whether Chiang can intervene this year if lawmakers face another budget dispute with Brown at the June 15 deadline.

The lawmakers filed in Sacramento Superior Court and hired as representation Arthur G. Scotland, retired presiding justice of the 3rd District Court of Appeal, as well as the Los Angeles firm Strumwasser & Woocher. The Legislature's operating budget, financed by tax dollars, will pay for legal costs.

Chiang said his own party's lawmakers failed to balance the budget largely because their plan underfunded schools by $1.3 billion according to his interpretation of the state constitution. He also said they failed to pass all of the bills necessary to carry out a balanced budget. Chiang's decision came after Brown vetoed the first budget lawmakers sent him at the deadline.

Under a 2010 voter-approved law, lawmakers lose their pay and tax-free expense money if they do not send the governor a balanced budget by the June 15 deadline. Democrats added that provision as a sweetener in Proposition 25, the main thrust of which was reducing the budget vote threshold to a majority, rather than two-thirds. The controller believes he has discretion to determine what counts as a balanced budget under the initiative.

Steinberg and Pérez believe the controller has no role under Proposition 25 to determine the validity of the Legislature's budget.

[SmithL]

The Rats feel entitled to be paid for smoke-and-mirror budgets.

[SmithL]

The Legislature's operating budget, financed by tax dollars, will pay for legal costs.

Your tax dollars at work!

[SpaceBar]

From the golden state to the train wreck state in a short thirty years.

[Del Rapier]

So once the Dems were able to do everything by majority,they moved to remove any other laws or rules that would impede their “golden rule” including one rule that was supposed to serve as a counterweight to their new found influence.