Posted on 07/16/2010 2:47:25 PM PDT by BenLurkin
Sacramento County Superior Court Judge Patrick Marlette today denied Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's request to immediately compel State Controller John Chiang to pay state employees minimum wage.
The denial means there will be a hearing on the issues on July 26, with a full hearing sometime in August, but Marlette's ruling is a boost for about 200,000 state workers, who were facing paychecks for $7.25 an hour for the July pay period. Chiang has said he would issue full pay unless the legal process went against him before July 22, the cutoff to send payroll to the check printer.
Today's hearing extended a stop-and-start legal battle between Chiang and Schwarzenegger stretching back to the state's last budget impasse in 2008.
Then, as now, Schwarzenegger invoked a 2003 state Supreme Court ruling to order state workers' pay withheld to the least allowed under federal law when the state fails to appropriate money for payroll by the July 1 start of a fiscal year. Once a budget is in place -- which could take weeks or months -- the employees receive their withheld pay.
Chiang refused to comply with the order 2008 order. He contended that the state's computers couldn't handle the job and that the state would risk running afoul of federal labor law if it recklessly did want the governor instructed.
Schwarzenegger sued and won in Sacramento Superior Court last year, but by then the 2008-09 budget was in place with money designated for payroll. State workers had escaped minimum wage.
Chiang appealed the decision and lost again this month in Sacramento's 3rd District Court of Appeal. But the court declined to rule on the so-called "infeasability" argument that Chiang had made, the notion that the state's system of payroll processing isn't up to the task.
Read more: http://blogs.sacbee.com/the_state_worker/#ixzz0tss7DC7Q
(Excerpt) Read more at blogs.sacbee.com ...
Start be firing the judges!
"Education" should be a prime candidate for massive cuts.
Though I'm talking about cuts at the State and local level, a friend of mine recently suggested the it would be interesting for TV crews to follow a few Department of Education employees around for a day to see what it is that these folks do. Does anyone have a clue what that might be?
ML/NJ
So the blacked robed dictator is in charge and not the Governor. But that is the way of the left wing and I know of NO part of the Constitution that says a Judge can be the decider of how employees are paid by their person placed in charge by the People.
” to see what it is that these folks do. “
Not very much - which is probably a good thing — they do a lot less damage this way than if they were actually doing their jobs....
Lots of financial uncertainties in California, but at least our disclosure laws make it possible to determine the price of a Controller.
Wonder when those “full” paychecks will start bouncing?
LOL, good news!
Anything that hurries up California’s bankruptcy is, in the end, good for California.
Like the alcoholic who wakes up one afternoon in a dumpster covered in his own urine, feces, and vomit, California must “hit bottom” before recovery can truly begin. Good luck. Hope California makes it to the “30 day” button.
I agree with you. But what is their jobs?
Really. Does anyone know?
Modern government employment just seems to be to be a disguised alternative to welfare.
ML/NJ
“Judge denies Schwarzenegger’s minimum wage order”
First, no governor is bound by the actions of a previous governor. Ditto a legislature. It’s why we have elections - the ability to correct the actions of a previous legislature.
This judge - hang the bitch. Well, to make it legal, first impeach and then hang her.
It’s way past time to reel in the actions of judges who have a personal agenda and are intruding on the rightful duty of lawmakers to make law.
Before we hang her, let’s seize all her assets and throw her family on the street. Now let’s burn the house. Then give her family permission to search the dumpsters for a big cardboard box.
If we intend to win this GD war, conservatives best start acting like Sherman on the march to the sea.
It’s either them or us.
Man, this guy is nothing like his Hollywood image. Pure girly man. He can’t couldn’t get a skirt hemmed.
Two observations. I believe that superior judges are subject to periodic re-election. Californians take note.
Second, the alternative to the Governor's proposal is emergency mass reductions in state employees.
Good luck to the public employees who haven't figured out that their superior salaries and benefits contributed to the financial crisis. Business as usual is literally no longer possible.
There are only two soloutions :
A significant reduction in state employees by firing the incompetent.
AND
A reduction in salary and benefits to all new hires in the future to conform more closely to the salaries and benefits in equivalent private industry.
Do it now. Or do it later when conditions will be worse.
Ignorance is bliss.
"Education" consumes 60% of California's budget, via a law passed by the teacher-public-employee complex.
Until that is repealed, NO solution is possible.
The controller will have to use his personal checking account, I guess.
He is not authorized to "create" money.
Your screen name is apt this evening, Mr. Vice President....sheesh.
I have always viewed it thus. Seriously; longer than I've been a Freeper.
A review of my posts since 1999 will find dozens of references to "public" employment at all levels as "the other welfare."
Quite expected from a resident of California. Have a nice day, as long as they last.
Those jobs were given to Democrat voters in return for their support - as is standard practice in socialist states around the world. Don't expect to remove them from state payrolls without a second civil war.
Exactly. Thank you!
You are the master of quips....I'm in awe of your intellect.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.