Our View: Kill these turkeys before they gobble up taxpayers

Sounds of “gobble-gobble” in Sacramento can be heard throughout California.

Not to slander the noble bird well known in our region, but a Legislature dominated by the Democratic Party has cranked out some turkeys that serve no purpose other than to keep people in some public-employee unions happy.

If Gov. Jerry Brown wants to stand up for taxpayers and transparency in government, he’ll take the veto ax to at least four of these bills.

Before we proceed, allow us to repeat what we say at the end of every legislative session: California doesn’t need hundreds of new laws; our lawmakers instead should turn over the seat cushions in the Capitol and find budget dollars to enforce good laws already on the books.

Turkey No. 1 is Senate Bill 376 by Sen. Ricardo Lara, D-Bell Gardens. It might as well come with jellied cranberry sauce for members of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, which represents many University of California employees. This dreadful bill would ban the UC from outsourcing full-time jobs to companies whose benefits don’t match the university’s wage and generous benefit plans for comparable employment.

UC estimates the bill will cost $36 million a year, plus another $12 million to $24 million to boost the wages of new employees. That would be significant for a system that turns away qualified children of taxpaying Californians because there isn’t enough room on its campuses.

SB 331 by Sen. Tony Mendoza, D-Artesia, is a cynical bill that goes by the disingenuous title “Civic Reporting Openness in Negotiations Efficiency Act.” It’s an Orwellian name for a bill that would actually blot out sunshine. Mendoza pushed this turkey because in recent years, a handful of municipalities had the temerity to adopt ordinances requiring additional public disclosure of labor contracts with public employee unions.

This bill would require those municipalities – and only them – to adopt ordinances requiring greater disclosure of any contract worth $50,000 or more. Our editorial board supports transparency in all cases. But SB 331 requires information that already is generally public. And if it’s such a great idea for these Orange County communities, Mendoza should have attempted to apply it to all local governments. He didn’t; that’s not his goal, nor that of his benefactors in the AFSCME and the Orange County Employees Association.

Assembly Bill 1293 by Assembly Member Chris Holden, D-Pasadena, and SB 682 by Sen. Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, seek to restrict the ability of state agencies and the courts from entering into contracts for services that could be performed by court or state employees. By restricting the state’s ability to retain contractors, Holden’s bill is another helping of stuffing for the Service Employees International Union. Leno’s court bill, meanwhile, is a big slab of ham to AFSCME, Orange County employees and the SEIU.

Common themes run through these bills. Republicans oppose them, and Democrats voted almost in lockstep for the turkeys. We counted only one Democrat who voted against each of the four, Sen. Steve Glazer of Orinda.

We understand public employee unions are Democrats’ biggest benefactors. But when legislators go out of their way to intervene on their behalf, taxpayers pick up the tab for their feast.

Gov. Brown needs to spoil the Democrats’ annual early Thanksgiving for these unions by vetoing these bills.

This story was originally published September 17, 2015 at 1:41 PM with the headline "Our View: Kill these turkeys before they gobble up taxpayers."