The People vs. the State Budget

The L.A. Times has the details:

Lawyers are being drafted in droves to unravel spending plans passed by the Legislature and signed by the governor. The goal of these litigators is to get back money their clients lost in the budget process. They are having considerable success, winning one lawsuit after another, costing the state billions of dollars and throwing California's budget process into further tumult.

In the last few months alone, the courts added more than a billion dollars to the state's deficit by declaring illegal reductions in healthcare services, redevelopment agency funds and transportation spending. Another ruling threatens to deprive California of all its federal stimulus money if the state does not rescind a cut to the salaries of home healthcare workers.

Lawyers are scrambling to prepare additional suits related to the budget plan the governor signed last month. On Friday, Senate Leader Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento) -- who negotiated the budget -- announced that even he plans to sue.....

The attorneys are seizing on state laws that were drafted in sunnier economic times, some of which were put in place by citizen initiative. They created new programs or expanded existing ones and contained language intended to solidify the place of those programs in state government. Now, the state is broke, and lawmakers and the governor are finding their attempts to take money from the programs rebuffed by the courts....

And passing budgets that could be toppled by lawsuit isn't always an accident:

It is hardly a secret in the Capitol that lawmakers sometimes approve budget measures despite their dubious legality because it buys them time. The hope is that by the time the appeals process is finally exhausted -- which can take years -- the economy will have rebounded, filling the gap with new revenue. It's a kind of borrowing.

Details on the Sen. Steinberg suit, mentioned above, from the San Diego News Network:

Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento) will file a lawsuit against Schwarzenegger early next week that contends the Gov. violated his constitutional authority in making line item vetoes to portions of the legislature's budget revision bill.

Titled "Steinberg v. Schwarzenegger," Steinberg criticized Schwarzenegger for punishing Californians. "We elected a governor, not an emperor," Steinberg said. "In making these line item vetoes the Governor forced punishing cuts on children, the disabled and patients that he couldn't win fairly at the bargaining table. And in doing so, he overstepped his constitutional authority."

California Progress Report also has a more specific report on a couple of lawsuits, regarding cuts in MediCal and new prison construction bonds.

Past City of Angles blogging on the tortured budget process here and here.

The image associated with this post was taken by Flickr user Daryl Hunt. It was used under user Creative Commons license.