January 25, 2012
Dear Members:
If you’ve been on the sidelines, it is time to strap your helmet on and get in the game. AB 1208 comes to a vote in the Assembly very soon. The bill is under a withering attack by the AOC and those they have enlisted in the fight. Those in opposition are working tirelessly at this very moment, walking the halls of the capitol using every scare tactic they can muster against the bill. Justice Hill, Justice Poochigian, other current and former members of the Judicial Council, as well as the usual AOC staffers are mounting an attack as we speak. They do not want to cede one iota of power to the trial courts, and are fighting fiercely to keep their feifdoms intact.
We need your help. If you haven’t already contacted your Assembly Member, PLEASE do so immediately. Even if you can’t speak directly to the member, speak to the member’s legislative assistant. It is simple–just call the main line of the member’s office and ask for the legislative assistant, who will be on top of of AB 1208. Go over the reasons for a “yes” vote, and provide whatever additional information might be needed by the member. This is truly a “good government” bill where both sides can come together in a bipartisan manner.
If you can talk to the member directly, so much the better. If not, your call is still vitally important as the Assembly staffers do their best to gauge support for the bill. We will win this if you will help!
Thank you for your support.
Alliance of California Judges
______________________________________________________________________________________
Related articles
- The JC and the AOC pulls out all the stops to prevent their budget from being cut (judicialcouncilwatcher.wordpress.com)
- Judges need to speak out (judicialcouncilwatcher.wordpress.com)
- It’s time to restore balance (judicialcouncilwatcher.wordpress.com)
- California Judges resume war over money and power (Dan Walters, SacBee.com)
- Reform Minded Judges take on Judicial Bureaucracy (Jon Fleischman, flashreport.org)
- Knives come out with drop dead date near on court reform bill (Maria Dizneo, Courthouse News)
Judicial Council Watcher 
Judicial Council Watcher
January 26, 2012
Assist us in becoming California’s 6.5 billion dollar reality check by contacting your legislator first thing tomorrow morning.
althepal55
January 26, 2012
I will!
Elmy Kader
January 26, 2012
One for all, and all for one GOD BLESS AMERICA, and GOD BLESS the honorable Alliance of California Judges. We are 100% supportive of you .
unionman575
January 27, 2012
http://blogs.sacbee.com/the_swarm/2012/01/tani-cantil-sakauye-pleads-her.html
January 26, 2012
Tani Cantil-Sakauye pleads her case, fights Calderon bill
Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye today urged the defeat of Assembly legislation that would undermine the authority of the Judicial Council, and give courts in as few as two counties authority to veto any statewide judicial project.
Cantil-Sakauye, who became chief justice in 2010, is showing herself to be a tough fighter as she lobbies to kill legislation by Assemblyman Charles Calderon, D-Whittier, himself the consummate inside player.
Appearing before The Bee’s editorial board, Cantil Sakauye said Calderon’s bill, AB 1208, would “reduce and eliminate the authority of the Judicial Council” to control significant parts of judicial branch spending.
As chief justice of the California Supreme Court, Cantil-Sakauye chairs the Judicial Council, which sets policy for courts statewide.
By far the bulk of the judicial branch’s $3.1 billion, more than 83 percent, is spent on trial courts. But the Judicial Council uses some money for statewide projects, including installation of a computer system, which has faced significant cost overruns.
Cantil-Sakauye said that under AB 1208, as few as two counties could veto any statewide project, such as the computer system. She said the measure also could have the effect of limiting the counties’ ability to set up special courts to hear criminal cases involving veterans or mentally people defendants.
Cantil-Sakauye said there should be “equal public access, wherever you live, whether or not your county is wealthy and whether or not you have a good relationship with your county supervisors or presiding judge.”
Siding with Cantil-Sakauye are presiding judges from 44 counties, a statewide association of defense lawyers, the big business-backed Civil Justice Association of California and the association’s rival, the Consumer Attorneys of California, which represents plaintiffs’ lawyers. Critics say the legislation raises separation of powers issues.
Backers include a group of judges, some of them from larger counties including Los Angeles and Sacramento, and the Service Employees International Union, which represents many court workers. The bill is headed to an Assembly vote on Monday.
Some judges have criticized the Judicial Council for overspending on projects such as the computer system, and for spending too much on the Administrative Office of Courts, which Cantil-Sakauye also oversees.
In an interview, Calderon criticized the Administrative Office of the Courts for having an out-sized bureaucracy and for spending money on, for example, a studio. The Legislature itself operates an extensive video and audio broadcast operation.
The Legislature has voted for budgets that have stripped the courts of $653 million during the past four years. As a result, counties have been forced to close during some days.
Calderon blamed mismanagement for the closures, saying, “It’s the Legislature’s responsibility to keep the courts open.”
Read more here: http://blogs.sacbee.com/the_swarm/2012/01/tani-cantil-sakauye-pleads-her.html#storylink=cpy
unionman575
January 27, 2012
http://www.sgvtribune.com/opinions/ci_19833665
Guest View: Fix state’s court-funding crisis
By Arnella Sims
Arnella Sims is a court reporter for the Los Angeles Superior Court.
Posted: 01/27/2012 01:53:38 AM PST
Cutbacks and scarcity have a way of revealing institutional weaknesses, and our court system in California is a perfect example. After suffering $605 million in cuts in the last three years, including $350 million in last year’s budget, the response from the central court bureaucracy, the Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC) has revealed a culture of bureaucratic rigidity, insularity and an inability or unwillingness to protect the courts’ core function: serving justice and the public.
A.B. 1208 by Charles Calderon, D-Industry, a bill introduced last year and facing a live-or-die Jan. 31 deadline, is a response to this failure. Instead of waiting any longer for the AOC and its ineffectual, rubber-stamp governing body, the Judicial Council, to mend their ways, the bill simply and cleanly prioritizes the core mission of the courts: justice. It provides that all funding allocated by the Legislature for trial courts be directed to trial courts, not the AOC or any of its special funds or pet projects.
The path to this crisis of confidence in the governance of our courts has been a long and tortured one.
For the first time ever, in 2010 California’s courts closed. This has never happened in California’s history, not even in the darkest economic times of the Great Depression. At the same time, over the past decade, the AOC has spent nearly half a billion dollars on a case management system that has been in development for over a decade, is 800 percent over budget, is expected to have a final price tag of nearly $2 billion – and still doesn’t work. The IT contract has been modified a staggering 102 times.
But the case against continuing to give the AOC carte blanche over trial court funding goes beyond the epic bungling of one project. Trial courts around the state are projecting massive layoffs and courtroom closures, including 1,200 jobs lost over the next two years in Los Angeles – at the same time, the AOC’s budget has more than quadrupled since 1997-98.
The Lockyer-Isenberg Trial Court Funding Act was intended to rectify imbalances that made justice in rural counties significantly different from the rest of the state. But the main result of the Act wasn’t to redistribute funding among counties as was intended – it was to redistribute funding to the central bureaucracy itself.
We need to be more accountable, more efficient, and more fully dedicated to serving the public.
A.B. 1208 is just the starting point.
The AOC’s functions and services need to be thoroughly re-imagined. For example, do the 15 judges, four attorneys, and two legislators who comprise the Judicial Council really have the business, real estate, architectural and engineering experience to manage the construction of $5 billion worth of new courthouses? The available evidence seems to indicate that they do not. One of the new courthouses cost $1,910 per square foot – nearly eight times higher than other government buildings. One small town of 200 will get a $26 million dollar building with only one courtroom.
From the trivial (iPads for all top brass) to the hugely obscene (CCMS, construction costs, and maintenance mismanagement), waste in the AOC is rampant.
Despite oversight hearings, reports and recommendations, the Legislature won’t see a fundamental change until it regains its proper role and power of the purse. The Legislature alone should exercise its responsibility to allocate money to trial courts; delegating that responsibility to a state bureaucracy with weak governance has been a costly mistake.
Arnella Sims is a court reporter for the Los Angeles Superior Court.
Read more: http://www.sgvtribune.com/opinions/ci_19833665#ixzz1kfZgJkVe
unionman575
January 27, 2012
http://www.sacbee.com/2012/01/27/4218853/the-buzz-californias-chief-justice.html
The Buzz: California’s chief justice isn’t happy with push to alter Judicial Council
Published: Friday, Jan. 27, 2012 – 12:00 am | Page 3A
California Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye has a lot of problems with a bill by Assemblyman Charles Calderon, D-Whittier, that seeks to make significant changes in the authority of the state’s Judicial Council.
But she’s particularly unhappy about the process used to put Assembly Bill 1208 forward, she told The Bee’s editorial board Thursday.
She said she was not told in advance that the measure affecting the council she chairs would be introduced, and she said the version now awaiting action on the Assembly floor was never aired in committee.
Cantil-Sakauye said she tried to reach out with little success to Calderon, who further endeared himself to the chief justice by commenting that she was “attractive” during a hearing on an earlier version of the measure.
“The first thing I did was call him and say, ‘Why are you doing this now?’ ” she said.
Calderon said it never occurred to him to call the chief justice before he introduced the bill. He said it also isn’t unusual for some changes to be made as bills move from one committee to another.
“It is incumbent upon a legislator to call a chief justice to tell them they are going to introduce a bill?” he asked. “I understand that she’s confused about the process because the Legislature isn’t the courtroom.”
Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2012/01/27/4218853/the-buzz-californias-chief-justice.html#storylink=cpy
Judicial Council Watcher
January 27, 2012
http://www.aroundthecapitol.com/Bills/AB_1208/20112012/
The comments section…
Michael Paul
January 27, 2012
There’s more where that came from. 😉
Judicial Council Watcher
January 28, 2012
You gave Pravda’s history buff operative a run for their money in SacBee. AB1208 has nothing to do with unions wanting to rip off construction funds for operations. Construction funds are being ripped off by the legislature for the general fund.
Common sense dictates that the remainder of construction funds collected be swept for trial court operations until such time that the economy turns around and that CCMS be abandoned.
Wendy Darling
January 27, 2012
Published late today, Friday, January 27, from Courthouse News Service, by Maria Dinzeo:
Knives Come Out With Drop Dead Date Near on Court Reform Bill
By MARIA DINZEO
Days before a voting deadline for a controversial trial court funding bill in California, judges and attorneys are putting heavy pressure on lawmakers in a final push for control of the purse strings.
On one side are the labor unions, reform-minded trial judges fed-up with the central bureaucracy of the courts and legislators who share their frustration. On the other are many presiding judges, court bureaucrats and bar groups, whose reasons for opposing AB 1208 are as varied as the factions themselves.
Even California Supreme Court Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye is not above the political fray, lobbying legislators against a bill she believes will strip away her power as leader of the judiciary.
The legislative bill, AB 1208, would send 100% of the money allocated by the Legislature for trial court operations to the trial courts, and it would take power over that purse away from the central governing council and the nearly 1,000-strong bureaucracy that sit atop the court system in California.
Read the entire article: http://www.courthousenews.com/2012/01/27/43423.htm
Long live the ACJ.
Elmy Kader
January 27, 2012
Unionman , thank you for the wealth of information as well as the humor in it, you made me laugh.
As you all can tell English isn’t my first language so please correct me if I’m wrong.
The chief Justice in her interview with the Bee’s editorial board said.
“She was particularly unhappy about the process used to put Assembly Bill 1208 forward, she also said she was not told in advance that the measure affecting the council she chairs would be introduced, and she said the version now awaiting action on the Assembly floor was never aired in committee”.
According to the English language does she fit the definition of CRY BABY?
Wendy Darling
January 27, 2012
How about the definition of liar?
Long live the ACJ.
sharonkramer
January 28, 2012
If she was unaware of the bill coming to the floor, how did she know to gift all those IPods to the legislators to fight the bill? Wonder if a little media trick to spoke the legislators will take place this time on the night before it is to be heard, like she did last time?
Wendy Darling
January 27, 2012
Published late Friday, January 27, from The Recorder, the on-line publication of CalLaw, by Cheryl MIller:
Font Size:
Scotland Quits Job as AOC Evaluator, Citing Raised Eyebrows
Cheryl Miller
Font Size:
SACRAMENTO — Retired Justice Arthur Scotland has resigned his chairmanship of a key Judicial Council committee to avoid any perceived conflicts with his new role as a lawyer for legislative leaders, the council announced late Friday.
Full article is subscription access only: http://www.law.com/jsp/ca/PubArticleCA.jsp?id=1202540429325&Scotland_Quits_Job_as_AOC_Evaluator_Citing_Raised_Eyebrows&slreturn=1
Long live the ACJ.
Been There
January 28, 2012
Uh oh. I hear the sound of a shoe dropping. Justice Scotland, God bless him, is someone I have always found to be a very ethical man. I guess I am just reading between the lines, but I have to wonder why he took a job that he knew would give him a way out of a chairmanship, a chairmanship of that key Judicial Council Committee looking into the AOC.
Read between the lines.
unionman575
January 29, 2012
http://www.courthousenews.com/2012/01/27/43423.htm
Friday, January 27, 2012Last Update: 3:56 PM PT
Knives Come Out With Drop Dead Date Near on Court Reform Bill
By MARIA DINZEO
(CN) — Days before a voting deadline for a controversial court reform bill in California, judges and attorneys are putting heavy pressure on lawmakers in a final push for control of the purse strings.
On one side are the labor unions, trial judges fed-up with the central bureaucracy of the courts and legislators who share their frustration. On the other are many presiding judges, court bureaucrats and bar groups, whose reasons for opposing AB 1208 are as varied as the factions themselves.
Even California Supreme Court Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye is not above the political fray, lobbying legislators against a bill she believes will strip away her power as leader of the judiciary.
The legislative bill, AB 1208, would send 100% of the money allocated by the Legislature for trial court operations to the trial courts, and it would take power over that purse away from the central governing council and the nearly 1,000-strong bureaucracy that sit atop the court system in California.
It would also put in place a procedure designed to control big projects taken on by the bureaucracy, a provision aimed squarely at an IT system that is projected to cost nearly $2 billion, is installed in just a few counties, and has been blasted by the state’s biggest courts.
Assembly Speaker John Perez, D-Los Angeles, has not taken on a position on the bill, but his spokesman suggested he is leaning in favor.
“We’re aware that it’s an issue that’s generating intense discussion,” said spokesman John Vigna. “He has not taken a position yet, but is inclined to support Democratic bills when they come to the floor.”
The author of the bill is Assembly Majority Leader Charles Calderon (D-Montebello) who is expected to bring it to the floor of the Assembly on Monday, with Tuesday as the deadline for an up or down vote. He is supported by labor groups who represent a major force in the Legislature.
“You have the working people opposing the aristocracy,” said Calderon, unabashedly playing the class warfare card.
The bill, he said, is all about financial accountability, which the massive central bureaucracy of the courts is often accused of lacking.
Calderon noted that bureaucrats in the court administrative office were caught misrepresenting figures to the Legislature regarding the cost of the IT project, and now, in a time of severe financial hardship, are still pushing ahead with it.
“That system over there is more of a monarchy then a democracy in terms of how it runs,” said Calderon. He credited the chief justice for establishing some transparency in how the judiciary conducts business, but not a whole lot.
“Basically it’s still a monarchy,” he said. “They don’t want scrutiny, but they want public money.”
On the other side of the bill is California’s chief justice.
She is supported by the bureaucracy under her, the Administrative Office of the Courts, and the governing council that she leads, the Judicial Council. In addition, a large majority of presiding judges also side with her, as does the plaintiff bar, another powerful force in the Legislature.
“The bill is based on, in my view, partial information and some lack of information about what’s going on in the branch,” said Cantil-Sakauye at a Judicial Council meeting this week. “But we’re doing our best to educate our fellow jurists and legislators and we’re finding strong support for opposition opposing the legislation as an unnecessary intrusion into judicial branch governance.”
The chief has also spent time visiting lawyer groups, and courts in San Diego and San Mateo, to discuss her position. Rounding out her tour of the state were visits to the editorial boards of newspapers like the Los Angeles Times, San Jose Mercury News and San Diego Union Tribune.
In an interview with the L.A. Times, she described the bill as “a hammer over my head.”
But her position suffered from a unanimous vote taken at the Judicial Council this week, pushing ahead on the IT project, called the Court Case Management System. The computer project and the assembly bill have been inextricably linked throughout the history of the proposed legislation.
In an interview Friday, Assembly Member Ricardo Lara (D-South Gate), said the reason for his support of AB 1208 is the “late, over-budgeted and unfinished computer system.”
Lara is chair of Joint Legislative Audit Committee that heard a scathing report from the State Auditor last year, blasting the court administrative office for its management of the IT project.
“I think the impetus of this has to deal with the CCMS audit and all the discrepancies that were involved in that. At the end of the day, taxpayer money is taxpayer money,” said Lara. “My intent as chair of JLAC is to protect taxpayer money and ensure that it’s not being wasted unnecessarily.”
“The bill restores our courts’ ability to manage their operations and keep their doors open and do what they’re supposed to do,” he added. “It ensures that the money gets to the courtrooms instead of being spent on bureaucratic waste.”
Judges up and down the state have also chimed in on the debate.
Big courts tend to be more independent of the central bureaucracy, and they either support the bill or are staying neutral. Smaller courts are often dependent on the administrative office for money and services, and oppose the bill.
“We feel that it’s going to take us backwards,” said Presiding Judge Ronald Hansen in Merced, an opponent of the bill.
He said Merced Superior is an underfunded court and he worries that the bill would lock in historical funding rates that would prevent the court from receiving additional money in the future.
Presiding Judge Richard Scheuler in Tehama County said historically underfunded courts “have always had to make do with less,” and he argued the bill would “cause destruction to the branch.”
“My concern is the forces that oppose the Judicial Council and the Administrative Office of the Courts oppose centralization,” he said, “without which small courts could not survive.”
Presiding Judge Paul Beeman in Solano repeated an argument often made after the new chief justice was sworn in early last year.
“The new chief justice has just been at it for a year,” said Beeman. “From my perspective she’s trying as hard as she can to right the ship. This bill cuts the legs out from out under her,” Beeman said. “We are a coequal branch and we get treated like the DMV or some junior college.”
But that argument does not sway Assemblyman Lara.
“I understand that she’s been there a short time. I understand she’s going to need time to put her policies and procedures in place,” said Lara. “But the fact is that the CCMS system is still being moved forward with and with a price tag of $2 billion,” he said, while his constituents are worried about “how to make ends meet.”
While a big majority of the presiding judges in California oppose the bill, many trial judges, from small counties and large, support AB 1208. In a poll last year of the traditional California Judges Association, a narrow majority of judges supported the measure.
“Unregulated discretion has made the AOC a bloated, unresponsive and wasteful bureaucracy,” said a recent report by the Alliance of California Judges, a newer group of judges committed to reforming the way the courts are run in California. “It has led to a situation where the constitutionally independent trial courts feel forced into subservience or obligation to a central administration.”
Judge David Lampe of Kern County, who is an Alliance director, said, “The problem is not simply lack of money, but poor spending priorities by a central bureaucracy.”
The biggest court in the nation, Los Angeles County Superior, has also taken a position strongly in support of AB 1208.
“Financial decisions are being made which are impacting the vast majority of litigants. That’s wrong and undemocratic,” said Los Angeles Judge Robert Dukes in an interview earlier this month. “There’s a feeling among trial court judges now that without this type of legislation, decisions are happening that impact our citizens in a negative way because of goals set by a bureaucracy.”
The voice of labor was expressed in a biting editorial published Friday in the San Gabriel Valley Tribune where a court reporter wrote, “Trial courts around the state are projecting massive layoffs and courtroom closures, including 1,200 jobs lost over the next two years in Los Angeles — at the same time, the AOC’s budget has more than quadrupled since 1997-98.”
While the chances of the bill’s backers were buoyed by this week’s Judicial Council vote on the IT project, Calderon said the timing could not have been worse for the bill’s opponents.
“It raised eyebrows,” Calderon said, who said legislators are still mad about the Auditor’s report last year saying the true cost of the project had been disguised.
“They are a separate branch of government, and we’re not telling them how to rule on cases, how to view or apply precedent or how they should apply justice,” he said. “Every branch of government is accountable for the money that they spend.”
He argued that the chief justice and other judges on the Judicial Council have full calendars and cannot be expected to exert control over an enormous and willful bureaucracy. “Where is the accountability in the expenditure of funds,” the majority leader continued. “And why should judges have any more credibility then any other official?”
antonatrail
January 29, 2012
More obfuscation by teensy tani
http://www.sacbee.com/2012/01/29/4221061/bill-by-dissident-judges-overreaches.html?storylink=lingospot_related_articles
Michael Paul
January 30, 2012
Less obfuscation by Michael Paul.
http://www.sacbee.com/2012/01/29/4221061/bill-by-dissident-judges-overreaches.html?storylink=lingospot_related_articles
A reply to Tani-
With all due respect to our newest Chief Justice, she seems to set aside or otherwise heartily disclaim the responsibility of each of the three branches of government to provide checks and balances on the other two branches.
It is not now, nor has it been at any time in history the responsibility of the Judicial Branch to determine legislative budget priorities. Budget priorities are the purview of the legislative and executive branches of government – not the Judicial Branch.
I am a former employee of the Administrative Office of the Courts that now does consulting work for another state entity. I am and always have been non-union as a part of my employment with the state of California so no one can say I have a union axe to grind or my own union membership to protect.
Fifteen years ago the judicial council was tasked by the state legislature with coming up with a trial court bill of financial rights. The judicial council never accomplished what the legislature mandated them to do under law.
Instead, they set aside that responsibility and began empire building in earnest by skimming from monies destined to go to the trial courts for wasteful projects that makes pentagon wasteful spending look like peanuts.
By providing no financial bill of rights mandated by the same law that consolidated the courts, the Judicial Council and its administrative offices, the Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC) created a mechanism that permits them unfettered growth by taking their slice of the legislative budget pie destined for our local courts even before our local courts get a bite.
Even after the courts get their bite of the pie, the same Judicial Council and Administrative Office of the Courts does everything possible to claw back even more money from the local courts budgets by charging them for (overpriced) services provided to them by the AOC or their consultants
Consider the facts:
1. The Chief Justice appoints most members of the Judicial Council. They are not elected, they are appointed. If they were elected by the judges or people of this state as opposed to being appointed, we wouldn’t have the mess we do now. It is incredibly rare that even one judicial council member submits a single vote of dissent. Most votes of the council, over 99% are unanimous and have been unanimous for the past fifteen years.
They predictably vote the way the chief justice wants them to on a mantra of “speak with one voice”. Imagine of the Governor could appoint every state legislator without term limits: You would have the same result. No dissenting votes and the Governors agenda would prevail if the legislators had any aspirations at other state leadership positions. Judges have similar aspirations. They might wish to be justices of the appellate or supreme courts and as of now can only achieve these offices by demonstrating they can speak with one voice
Now you know why over 400 state judges don’t advertise their membership in the Alliance of California Judges
2. A clear majority of judges statewide (not just alliance judges) support AB1208. So you can set aside the Chief’s claim on presiding judge support because those presiding judges speak for themselves, not their entire bench.
3. The Chiefs claims that decentralization will result in a return to the wild west of different rules, policies and procedures is a red herring and a scare tactic being foisted on attorneys (and by her good friend and President of the California Chamber of Commerce) to gain their support. With the truth being told, she would have little support – but let’s not forget this Chief Justices’s favorite saying: “There is no one truth – only versions of it”
Sponsors of AB1208 have reiterated that this bill will not change rules, policies or procedures. Those are the purview of the Judicial Council. This bill will stop the Judicial Council and AOC skimming and claw back of funds meant to keep the court doors open to the public.
4. The reasons for this bill are numerous but let’s consider a few reasons:
a) Paying unlicensed contractors tens of millions of dollars to do grossly overpriced work where a
contractors license is required and expending court funds to do so, then filing a sham lawsuit that
denies the existence of most of the unlicensed contractors they did business with. (Can you
say construction kickbacks? I knew you could…)
b) A software program called the California Case Management System (CCMS V4) that was
projected to cost $250 million dollars with delivery in 2006. It is now projected to cost
between 1.9 billion and 3 billion dollars ,if and when it is ever completed. The money for
this boondoggle, being produced by a company that has a HORRIFIC track record of software
development and delivery and associated lawsuits against them across the country (including
three lawsuits against them here in California [L.A.Unified School District, Marin County and Levi-
Strauss & Co.] is developing this project – are about six years late deploying it to even one court.
Nonetheless, the Chief Justice is really requesting the authority to keep in taking money from the
trial courts for this failed project that has seen almost six hundred million dollars of your money
vaporize already and has resulted in thousands of layoffs and court closures to pay for it.
The Judicial Council and the AOC are accountable to no one. If fraud happens, they investigate and prosecute themselves. A few years ago, a contract employee embezzled over a hundred thousand dollars from the AOC. They never filed a crime report to report the crime. They just paid the perp and let them walk away.
AB1208 gives individual trial courts a position at the table on how their funds are being spent. In more common terms, AB1208 promotes democracy and will help the judicial branch heal thyself.
Please support AB1208
Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2012/01/29/4221061/bill-by-dissident-judges-overreaches.html?storylink=lingospot_related_articles#storylink=cpy
Wendy Darling
January 30, 2012
Here, here!
Long live Michael Paul. And long live the ACJ.
unionman575
January 29, 2012
http://www.mercurynews.com/breaking-news/ci_19848031
Showdown over California courts coming to a head
By Howard Mintz
hmintz@mercurynews.com
Posted: 01/29/2012 03:47:54 PM PST
With a crucial vote looming Monday, a conflict that has shaken California’s judiciary reaches a critical stage when the Assembly considers legislation that would strip control of most of the court system’s purse strings from a central bureaucracy and turn it over to the Legislature and local trial judges.
The yearlong battle over control of the court system’s $3 billion budget reached a boiling point this week as Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye began a campaign to kill the legislation sponsored by Charles Calderon, D-Whittier, the Assembly’s ranking Democrat.
The Assembly must vote on Monday, otherwise the legislation will die for at least the remainder of this year.
Calderon’s bill, backed by labor groups and a splinter organization of the state’s judges, would largely scrap a 15-year-old state law that centralized court supervision and budget authority among California’s 58 trial courts.
The struggle for power over local court budgets could shape how judges deal with everything from how they pay for legal services for the poor to setting filing fees for lawsuits for years to come.
The legislation exposes a rare public rift within California’s sprawling judiciary, which has been rife with infighting over how hundreds of millions of dollars in budget cuts are being spread through the nation’s largest state court system.
The primary target of critics of the current system has been the Administrative Office of the Courts, the court bureaucracy, and the Judicial Council, chaired by the chief justice and the policy arm of the court system.
The Bay Area’s trial courts are an example of the division.
The presiding judges of 44 of the trial courts signed onto a letter this month opposing the legislation, but there was a mix in the Bay Area.
Santa Clara, Contra Costa, Santa Cruz and Monterey counties signed the letter, but Alameda, San Mateo and San Francisco did not. The latter counties are among those forced to shrink staff dramatically and shorten public hours at clerk’s offices to close budget gaps.
In an interview this week with the Mercury News editorial board, Cantil-Sakauye warned that Calderon’s legislation would be a disaster for most trial courts, producing unfair results for many counties and injecting politics into funding for the judiciary. She noted that Los Angeles Superior Court, which backs the change, would be able to veto important statewide legal programs with scant support from other counties.
“What we lose is uniformity,” the chief justice said. “We abdicate decision making about the policies of the judicial branch, the nonpolitical branch, to the Legislature.”
Calderon, however, said this week the legislation is needed to rein in the power of the administrative office, which the Mercury News reported two years ago has expanded greatly while the rest of the system has been cut.
Calderon called the agency the “tail that wags the dog,” saying the Legislature can allocate the money to the trial courts directly.
“There is huge division in the courts and it won’t go away if the bill dies,” Calderon said.
Although Cantil-Sakauye downplayed such division, there are splits.
Richard Loftus, Santa Clara County’s presiding judge, strongly opposes the legislation, saying it sends the system backward and could jeopardize a new family courthouse project.
But neighboring San Mateo County’s presiding judge, Beth Freeman, said her court supports the shift to give local judges more say in how money is divided. The Judicial Council and administrative office, she said, make statewide decisions on funding that can be disconnected to the needs of individual courts such as San Mateo’s.
Sacramento Superior Court Judge Marianne Gilliard, one of the leaders of the Alliance of California Judges, a group supporting Calderon’s bill, said change is needed because the bureaucracy is “skimming” money from the trial courts for statewide programs such as a controversial billion-dollar technology upgrade.
But Cantil-Sakauye, while conceding “not everything is perfect,” said it would damage the judiciary to hand over so much power to the Legislature.
“All we do is divvy up cuts, we don’t divvy up largesse,” she said.
As for the discontent among some judges and court employees’ unions, she added:
“I dare anyone to show me a public entity (after four years of budget cuts) where the employees or the stakeholders are happy.”
Howard Mintz covers legal affairs. Contact him at 408-286-0236 or follow him at Twitter.com/hmintz
Mrs. Kramer
January 30, 2012
“As for the discontent among some judges and court employees’ unions, she added:
“I dare anyone to show me a public entity (after four years of budget cuts) where the employees or the stakeholders are happy.”
Okay. Will Do. Answer: The Administration of the Courts and the stakeholders who want them to remain the corporate headquarters in charge of the judicial branch satilite offices aka trial courts.
unionman575
January 30, 2012
http://www.mercurynews.com/news/ci_19854219
Bill would give lawmakers control of court budgets
By JULIET WILLIAMS Associated Press
Posted: 01/30/2012 03:57:14 PM PST
Updated: 01/30/2012 05:30:56 PM PST
SACRAMENTO, Calif.—The state Assembly on Monday narrowly approved legislation that would return control of California’s $3 billion court budget to the Legislature, stripping some authority from the court bureaucracy in a move opposed by the state’s chief justice.
Assemblyman Charles Calderon, D-Whittier, and other critics say the Administrative Office of the Courts and the system’s bureaucracy have grown out of control, spending billions of dollars on a new computer system at the same time local courthouses have closed or greatly reduced hours and services because of budget cuts.
In the midst of the cuts, the Administrative Office of the Courts transferred another $70 million to the computer upgrade project, Calderon said, enough money to keep the shuttered courts open.
AB1208 “puts the Legislature back in control of the purse strings and allows the Legislature to appropriate money directly to the courts,” he said.
Lawmakers debated the bill for nearly an hour before it passed with the bare majority needed, 41-23, sending it to the Senate. At least 15 lawmakers abstained from voting.
Opponents and supporters of the legislation have been lobbying hard in recent weeks. The measure has divided lower court judges.
California Supreme Court Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye, who assumed the state’s top judicial post a year ago, said the legislation threatens the courts’ independence. She has asked lawmakers for more time to fix the administrative problems.
Several legislators said they were hesitant to undo the system, which was established by the Legislature in 1997 and ended a piecemeal system that left dramatic funding and service disparities from county to county.
Assemblyman Roger Dickinson, D-Sacramento, said taking control of court funding is not a way to end the current problems.
“We all have an underlying responsibility to recognize a co-equal branch of government’s necessary ability to determine its own affairs,” he said. “Sometimes it is the right time to let another branch of government run its own business.”
The legislation also would require increased scrutiny for spending money on any statewide information system or infrastructure program that was not in the annual budget. That is an attempt to avoid another debacle like the Statewide Case Management Project, which aimed to link all courts to a centralized computer system.
The cost of that system has climbed from $260 million in 2004 to an estimated $1.9 billion in 2010, and the state auditor has cited numerous problems with the contracts and bidding process.
Assemblyman Nathan Fletcher, a San Diego Republican who voted for the bill, called the Administrative Office of the Courts, which oversees the computer project, “a failed institution that is failing the trial courts that it is entrusted to protect.”
He cited a litany of questionable expenditures as evidence that the agency was not interested in real change. In the midst of a budget crisis, Fletcher said the court office spent $5,000 to paint a closet, $21,000 to replace lights in a parking lot in Los Angeles, and $200,000 to repave a parking lot the agency leases month-to-month.
Several lawmakers noted that Cantil-Sakauye has been chief justice for only a year and urged supporters of the legislation to give her time to make the sweeping changes they are seeking, but Calderon said he has already waited.
“I gave the chief justice time,” Calderon said. “I didn’t take this bill up last year. It’s been nearly a year, and what’s changed?”
Joe Nomedeguerre
February 2, 2012
Well now I seen Judicial Council Watcher for what it is…. a tool of the Alliance… i don’t come here very much… I find most of this pretty arcane… But now the Judicial Council Watcher cheering on the Alliance’s reactionary, yes reactionary, attempt to destroy the independence of one of the three branches of government. I work at the AOC. I know there is waste, privilege, arrogance, and a lot of foolishness. The Judicial Council tops won’t be the ones to pay. The workers at the AOC will continue to pay. We don’t even have SEIU idiots to pretend to defend our interests.
All of the lawyers, judges, IT managers will be working somewhere else after the big cut AB1208 represents if it see light again. But what about us… clerks, secretaries, copy machine people, the court services analysts, the coordinators…. we are once again forgot about.
Probably time to make ourselves heard.
BTW…. SEIU in LA. Thanks for thinking about the workers at the AOC. You want 900 unemployed on your legacy. We all hated your stand and deliver.
Guest
February 2, 2012
Joe,
You need to turn your anger toward your own management. Because of them over 1500 hard working court employees in the trial courts have lost their jobs the past decade so your agency could expand. No one doubts most of the staff of the AOC are good and hard working people also, but to expect that you should have your job on the backs of the trial court employees is just wrong.
This branch does not exist to support the AOC employment needs caused by their created needs and expansion. It exists for people to adjudicate claims in our trial courts. We all (including you) are suffering because of the horrible management and misguided priorities of the AOC. The common theme in the floor debate from both sides is how miserable and untrustworthy is your leadership.
Finally, I am not a member of SEIU, but it seems silly to expect they would have the interest of any employee of an agency which is so derisive of represented employees. Your management has made it clear they disdain unions. You protection? Help clean your own house.
Judicial Council Watcher
February 2, 2012
We agree. The greatest form of protection for non-management employees is to spill the beans (so to speak) on those responsible for mismanagement. We would rather burn an AOC manager in effigy and watch someone hold them accountable than we would like to see AOC employees get fired or laid off.
Your greatest protection as an AOC employee is to help clean your own house. That can be accomplished anonymously as well via our secure email.
We’re no more a tool of the ACJ than metnews, courthouse news or ABC news is.
Wendy Darling
February 3, 2012
Here, here!
Elmy Kader
February 3, 2012
Joe,
These are you own words “I work at the AOC. I know there is waste, privilege, arrogance, and a lot of foolishness”.
My question to you is, do you really feel good working for this unhealthy corrupt UN-American join
Joe Nomedeguerre
February 3, 2012
Dear Elmy Kader, what odd and moralistic stance! Workers work for many companies that are pretty bad…ask anyone who works for Dow Chemical or PG&E. As for un-American…. the AOC is hardly Un-american. Do you even know what that phrase means…Jeez.
anna
February 4, 2012
Yeah, we do know what that means. There is no actual “need” for the AOC as it stands today. Most of the jobs you have, are already are being done by actual court employees. [or were] Your controlling officers, [CSC] just wanted more control over cases, trials and the law illegally.
The redundancy of the JC and the AOC are disgusting. Ex; your commission on CACI or jury instructions. They are completely redundant to BAJI. why have it? Because the SC wanted to change the law illegally, by omitting or inserting seemingly “innocuous” words, which actually change the law and the intent of the legislature..
So, stop with the sanctimonious outrage. There should be no “clerks” in the AOC. You are not allowed to have any “adjudicative” responsibilities. However, what the AOC has turned into is a “snitch” organization, to alert the reviewing courts of cases or trials they want shut down, in order to cover up illegal activity of the judiciary.
Yeah, I’d say your job and agency is UN-American.
It disgraces our very concept of jurisprudence.
Last time I looked theft and graft were illegal, and in my book un-American.
anna
February 4, 2012
Independence of the Judiciary????? Joe, there are three branches of government, each has a duty to ” check” and “balance” the other. Hello???????
This ridiculous notion that the judiciary has no legislative “check” on it, came out of HRH the1st’s ass.
Ronald George wanted to run his own personal govt. He hated stare decisis, along with the notion that courts can only issue “valid” and constitutional orders, and decisions. He thought he could just say or do anything, and nobody would call him on it.
You’ve been drinking his “kool-aid” way too long.
Elmy Kader
February 4, 2012
Hi Joe,
I do know what the phrase Jeez means my daughter use it all the time and I hope that someday soon she will outgrew it, furthermore what I meant by Un-American is the conduct of this criminal enterprise (JC and AOC) that you work for, it reminded me of this criminal organization the (Egyptian Government) conducts prior to the revaluation.
Now let me ask you if you know what the following means.
Ask not what your country can do for you, but ask what you can do for your country
Wendy Darling
February 4, 2012
You know it’s a sad day in this country when believing in telling the truth, having ethics, and doing the right thing is derisively condemned as being “moralistic”.
Long live the ACJ.
sharonkramer
February 4, 2012
Wendy,
That post really hits home with me. Its not “moralistic” to tell the truth. Its what people in a functioning society are suppose to do. When did telling the truth become an undesirable trait in this country?
I am blown away by how many people actually believe it is moral to keep your head down and your mouth shut, even when you see the devastation that corruption is causing.
What these foolish people don’t realize is that they are making those who do speak out easier targets of the corrupt; thereby lessening their own right in the future to be able to speak the truth without retaliation.
First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out —
Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out —
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out —
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me — and there was no one left to speak for me.
Elmy Kader
February 4, 2012
Right on Sharon.