Those of us who want to rein in the pay, power and perks of the public sector aren't having too much policy success here in California, as the unions and their legislative allies plow ahead as if nothing has changed from the past few years. For instance, one obnoxious union bill (AB 455) that has made its way to the governor's desk would require that local commissions that determine pay and benefits for public employees have 50 percent of their members appointed by unions.
That will assure that these commissions always insist on higher pay. (Never mind that the other 50 percent will be appointed by politicians mostly owned by the unions.) The bill was rushed through without any vetting, meaning that even the details of it are absurd. As one lobbyist reminded me, these commissions always have an odd number of members, so if the governor signs the bill how do cities ensure that half the members are union hacks?
When these types of jokes go mainstream, we can be sure that our criticisms of the public sector are gaining resonance outside of our think tanks, blogs and cloistered world of policy wonk-dom. The key now is turning this tide of public opinion into real-world reforms. That's particularly tough in California, where the unions own the Legislature and can still ram through ridiculous special-interest bills such as AB 455 without even a discussion or a basic vetting of the wording. We better keep laughing here, because it's still a long way from reform.
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