For Immediate Release: August 23, 2004

SAN FRANCISCO – The Assembly Labor and Employment Committee of the California Legislature rejected an opportunity to save taxpayers more than $200 million. It thereby earns the Pacific Research Institute’s 8th California Golden Fleece Award.

“Unlike previous backroom deals that resulted in waste, this one took place in full view,” said Lawrence J. McQuillan, director of Business and Economic Studies at the Pacific Research Institute (PRI). PRI gives the award quarterly to state and local programs that fleece taxpayers.

The 3,200-member California Union of Safety Employees (CAUSE) gained increased pensions through “buying Gray Davis” in the words of its attorney. Davis signed a bill that put milk testers and billboard inspectors on a par with police officers and firefighters.

CAUSE gave Davis $100,000 three days before the bill was amended, $5,000 the day it passed, and $250,000 two weeks after he signed it.

“This benefits the union members to the tune of $11 million in fiscal year 2004-05 and an estimated $216 million over the next 20 years,” said McQuillan. “But there was a way out.”

SB 9, a bill by Senator Tom McClintock, would have rescinded the increases that Davis authorized. But instead of seizing this opportunity, the Legislature took evasive action, shuttling the measure between the Senate and Assembly.

On June 23, the Assembly Labor and Employment Committee killed the bill, preventing the full Assembly from having a say on the matter. And so the pension hike went into effect on July 1.

“As a result of ‘buying Gray Davis,’ taxpayers are now stuck with an additional $216 million pension bill, adding to the state’s chronic budget problems,” said McQuillan.

“The pension hike was bought, not earned, and it benefits a few at the expense of the many,” he said. “This is the dynamic of taxpayer fleecing and government growth. That a union lawyer openly brags about buying the governor shows how accepted this practice is in California’s capital.”

"On this pension issue, the head of the California Highway Patrol said it was the policymakers' job to say ‘no.’ They failed in that job and stuck taxpayers with the bill," McQuillan said.

For refusing to save California taxpayers more than $200 million when they had every chance to do so, the California Legislature, specifically the majority Democrats on the Assembly Labor and Employment Committee, earn PRI’s 8th California Golden Fleece Award.

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About PRI
For more than two decades, the Pacific Research Institute for Public Policy (PRI) has championed individual liberty through free markets. PRI is a non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to promoting the principles of limited government, individual freedom, and personal responsibility.