SACRAMENTO, CA. -- The Davis Administration has provided an illustration of why government is expensive and not likely to get cheaper any time soon.

According to a source at a state agency, staffers have been notified that no official functions can take place
at non-union hotels. Only union hotels are acceptable for state business, staffers were told, whether or not
the state employees could secure a better deal at other facilities. The mandate was also retroactive.

If staffers had scheduled any conferences or seminars, these had to be canceled and rescheduled at union
hotels, a troublesome and expensive process. And all this came accompanied with a gag order. Directors,
managers, and employees alike were told not to talk about this new policy. But state employees, who asked
not to be identified, thought the public had a right to know. The press has been slow to respond.

Spokesmen for the governor deny that any such policy exists, only that Governor Davis has a "strong
preference" that his own staff use only union hotels. But what is going on is clear. Davis is willing to
sacrifice efficiency in government in order to reward his union supporters, who represent key cogs in his
administration.

For the important post of legislative aide, Mr. Davis picked Rick Simpson. According to one Sacramento
insider Simpson "has carried water for the California Teachers Association for so long his shoes squish when
he walks."

To head the state Department of Transportation, which includes Caltrans and wields a budget of more than $6
billion, the governor tapped Jose Medina, a former San Francisco Supervisor with no experience or expertise
that would suit him for the job other than being a favorite of Davis’ backer Willie Brown, mayor of San
Francisco. A lawyer with close ties to organized labor, Medina for 12 years worked for the Instituto Laboral
de la Raza (Labor Institute of The Race).

Steve Smith, Davis’ pick to direct California’s Department of Industrial Relations, is a former government relations coordinator for the California State Employees Association. The powerful CSEA is not happy with the size of the pay raise the administration has planned. But everyone should be unhappy with the union-only policy.

The administration’s exclusion of non-union hotels is an unofficial version of the federal Davis-Bacon Act,
which mandates union labor on government construction projects and excludes non-union workers. This is why
government buildings come in at the highest possible price. That should not be true of all state services.

State workers, unionized or not, deserve competitive salaries and benefits. But the vast majority of
California’s workers are not in unions. From an all-time high of 25.5 percent in 1953, unions now
represent only 14.1 percent of the workforce. Mr. Davis was elected to govern all California’s people, not just
a minority. Exclusionary policies and a push for secrecy are not good signs from an administration
advertising itself as moderate, inclusive, and a promoter of diversity.

California is a high-tax state and Californians have a right to expect state workers to seek the best deal for
their hard-earned dollars. The best deal cannot be secured under a policy that excludes some venues and
workers on partisan political grounds.

-- K. Lloyd Billingsley