SACRAMENTO, CA - A deficit of more than $30 billion and a sluggish economy are excellent grounds for cuts in government. California was recently handed such a chance when a state appeals court ruled 3-0 that the state's Coastal Commission is unconstitutional because it violates the separation of powers. Besides being in the court's view illegal, the Commission is also inept and facilitates corruption. But instead of disbanding the Commission, legislators began working three shifts to save the body, in a defiance of common sense, democracy, and even environmental realities.

The California Coastal Commission was created by a 1972 ballot initiative as a temporary agency to come up with a long-term plan to protect the state's coastline. It is really the legacy of the Brown Era of Endless Government Growth, when the state even launched a commission on self-esteem.

There are 15 counties on the California coastline. The Coastal Commission assumes that the duly elected state and local representatives of these counties, and the residents themselves, are incapable of protecting the coast. Commission backers warned that big-bucks developers and wheeler-dealers would overwhelm the dim locals and junk up the coast. But as it happened, the Commission actually facilitated corruption.

As my colleague Steven Hayward recently pointed out in this space, the Commission combines ideological zeal with bureaucratic corruption of the worst kind. Since commissioners serve at the pleasure of the legislature, big-time campaign contributors have the inside track on approvals. One commissioner, Mark Nathanson, served five years of prison time for peddling favors.

Cutting the Commission would reduce corruption, save costs, and restore the rights of locals to govern their own affairs. A sudden onslaught of building is hardly likely because, as Dr. Hayward has also noted, the Coastal Commission is not necessary to quash even the slightest development.

In Cambria, on the central coast, local residents, having already procured their homes, hot tubs, satellite dishes, and Volvos, have teamed up to block the construction of some 20 homes. But in a gesture of great magnanimity, they allowed Habitat for Humanity to build a single (one) house, in an area where the need for housing might be called an emergency. This writer recently verified that a one-bedroom shanty of 1940s vintage is selling for $550,000. That is far beyond the reach of most Californians who would like to live near the coast, and completely out of question for those who work in the town.

The reluctance to abolish a body that is illegal, wasteful, an engine of corruption, and counterproductive to boot, comes from an unshakeable faith in government. That happens to be the reigning faith in the capital, and not even fathomless deficits can shake it. This is the faith that has prompted the senate to propose tripling the car tax. Meanwhile, the lessons seem clear.

Temporary measures have a way of becoming permanent. One started, government bodies are practically impossible to eliminate. The absence of positive results is no obstacle to the maintenance of such bodies or the launching of new ones. That's what the Sacramento crowd really wants to do. Since much of California is every bit as scenic as the coast, a California Interior Commission remains a distinct possibility.