Last week, many of us heard about a letter from CJP Counsel Victoria Hensley to Attorney General Kamala Harris. In this letter that we’ve only been able to read about is some curious wording that does concern every California citizen and should cause everyone to write Ms. Harris and it has to do with SBx211.
In the letter from Victoria Hensley to the Attorney General, then from the Attorney General to various interested parties, there appear to be two distinct questions. We’re going to separate the two questions for an independent analysis of each question because we too want to hear from the public, from other stakeholders and would like to know the opinion of both the CJA and the ACJ is on these issues as they are not as cut-and-dry as other media outlets are making them out to be. While they might be puzzled as to the nature of the questions, we feel confident that the nature of these questions strikes partially at the heart of our argument with the crown here at JCW and that argument with the crown concerns public corruption.
You might remember not too long ago, we took to task an article written by Janice M. Brickley in a post labeled Could it happen here? Having a significant basis to be critical and having this site chock full of the other ways this is happening here, we advised others to bring their waders when reading this story.
A little time passes and another article is artfully written about critics of the process, to which I would doubt if we weren’t the most vocal on that issue. Given we named names, we wouldn’t doubt for a second that the artfully written response was to assuage critics like us.
We weren’t moved until this past week when Victoria Hensley asked the Attorney General two questions regarding extra-judicial compensation and this begins our analysis.
Question # 1.
The Commission on Judicial Performance submitted two questions to Harris in late May, inquiring whether lawmakers would have the authority to pass a measure which “purports to preclude the [CJP] from disciplining California superior court judges for authorizing supplemental compensation to be paid to themselves from public funds, and/or receiving that supplemental compensation, on the ground that such benefits were or are not authorized by law.
Discussion: The key words here are in bold italics. Note that this is not the county authorizing supplemental compensation to superior court judges. This is the judges themselves authorizing supplemental compensation for themselves out of public funds. Now, how those public funds might be delivered is a whole other ball of wax not mentioned. Were they delivered as a “finders fee” from an unlicensed contractor to a judge? Were they delivered as a “signing bonus” from Deloitte? After all, payments passed through intermediaries and on to judges in this manner in any other profession could be construed as a bribe but might be construed as acceptable under SBx211 precluding judges from being prosecuted from taking a real bribe because it was paid for with public funds.
Question #2
The CJP asked Harris if the measure’s provisions “simply identify which judges are permitted as of the effective date of SBX2 11 to continue receiving supplemental compensation from the effective date forward, on the terms and conditions in effect on July 1, 2008,” or if they “retroactively authorize all or some portion of supplemental compensation provided by counties to judges, or to judges themselves, so long as it was being provided as of July 1, 2008.”
Discussion: It was known that there were numerous counties that did not provide this supplemental benefit to their counties judges. Certainly none as generous as those provided by Los Angeles County. This too is a good question because if an arrangement was altered after the July 1 2008 cutoff with either a commencement or increase in such payments, then we would believe that everyone should have a problem with this. We also generally believe that these payments should be phased out with higher judicial salaries statewide phased in based on a similar cost of living offsets of other state employees salaries.
We read reports about how everyone was puzzled, believing these matters to have been resolved. Obviously, the insight we have provided into these questions with a different perspective demonstrates that these questions are anything but resolved.
Judicial Council Watcher 
JusticeCalifornia
June 26, 2011
JCW, can you link the CJP letter itself to this post?
Judicial Council Watcher
June 26, 2011
We don’t have a copy of either the letter from Hensley to Harris, nor from Harris to “interested parties”
http://www.metnews.com/articles/2011/cja062411.htm
Here is a metnews article about it and someone was kind enough to fire us off a copy of one from The Recorder that was behind a paid firewall. Since we received the articles last Friday, they’ve been the talk of the office as SBx211 was so obscure and did not modify the constitution regarding judicial benefits as (we understand) it should have, but a seperate patchwork law was passed to (in effect) indemnify everyone involved and validate all previous litigation.
Wendy Darling
June 26, 2011
One of King George’s parting gifts to the State judicial branch and the people 0f California.
Long live the ACJ.
JusticeCalifornia
June 26, 2011
Wow JCW. Good eye and great provocative post. Key VERY BROAD wording of SBX 211:
Click to access sbx2_11_bill_20090220_chaptered.pdf
SEC. 5. Notwithstanding any other law, no governmental entity, or
officer or employee of a governmental entity, shall incur any liability or be
subject to prosecution or disciplinary action because of benefits provided
to a judge under the official action of a governmental entity prior to the
effective date of this act on the ground that those benefits were not authorized
under law.
That is actually an amazing pardon/gift of unknown scope and proportion, financially, ethically, and otherwise, thanks to SENATOR STEINBERG.
JusticeCalifornia
June 26, 2011
As for the details of comparative supplemental judicial benefits (county paid, court paid, and combination county/court paid) by CA county as of July 1, 2008, you can find these in the report called “Historical Analysis of Disparities in Judicial Benefits” — Report to the Senate Committee On Budget and Fiscal Review, The Assembly Committee on Budget, and the Senate and Assembly Committees on Judiciary, dated December 15, 2009, presented to the Judicial Council at a meeting on that same date.
Click to access 121509item12.pdf
For a national comparison of judicial salaries/benefits see:
http://www.ncsconline.org/d_kis/salary_survey/query_report_simple.asp
http://www.ncsconline.org/D_KIS/Salary_Survey/retirement.asp
SF Whistle
June 26, 2011
Interesting—-the branch likes 1998 Lockyer-Isenberg here—-but all these years later when the requirement met in AB 1208 is introduced it is an insult to the independence of the branch.
Equally fascinating is the discussion of the need for parity and what is essentially the level playing field of compensation—yet any regard of a level playing field among family law court litigants vanished years ago—
“Disparities”—-let’s do launch a discussion about analysis of disparities—however let’s make the discussion about disparities of accountability—transparancy—disclosures—veracity—
Judicial Council Watcher
June 27, 2011
Parity of salaries is not what we are suggesting. We are suggesting that other state employees are paid their salaries based upon locality pay and the high cost of living in certain areas – and that similar considerations be made for judges salaries. It would still mean that LA and Bay Area judges would be paid more than others because the cost of living in those areas is higher.
We remain of the mind that if the governance issue is cleared up (ie, judicial council democracy) many other issues would also be cleaned up, including the family law mess.