The Good The Bad and The Ugly.

The Good: A specially convened Supreme Court blocked the sale of 24 state buildings for 2.1 billion dollars. The Schwarzenegger administration sought to wrap up the sale before the new year started not because “the deal would be forever lost” but because the new guv wouldn’t be likely to play along and shift the burden off to a future generation.

The Bad: Every day that passes it appears that Chief Justice mini-mimi is a Ronald George knockoff, wanting to stay the course in a flagship that has been dive-bombed, torpedoed and strafed and there is a whole lot more coming.

The Ugly: A panel of appellate court justices has held that the legislature crafted a temporary solution with SBx211 even though SBx211 does not change the constitutional responsibilities of the state to determine what judges are paid. Throughout California, other state workers are subject to pay differentials based on locality. Perhaps the judicial branch should be looking towards a similar solution instead of a one size fits all solution that raises the pay of all state judges to L.A.’s levels.