CA pension reform opponents squawking about election results

June 5, 2012

By Brian Calle

Voters in San Diego and San Jose, recognizing the budget havoc wreaked by public employee pensions, the undue influence of public employee unions and the dire need for reform, voted decisively on ballot measures to change lucrative public employee pension benefits. But taxpayers ought not celebrate yet as unions gear up to challenge the measures in court.

Steve Maviglio, a spokesperson for the status quo and a denier of pension woes in California sent out the following statement for another union apologist, Dave Low, the chairman of Californians for Retirement Security (a front group for protecting union-negotiated pensions):

“While we respect the decision of San Diego and San Jose voters, these measures will have perilous long-term consequences for workers, the economy and the public. These results will mean broken promises and less retirement security for working families and seniors, many of whom do not receive Social Security. Backers of these measures outspent workers by an 8-1 margin in San Diego alone, and we are confident the outcome would have been different had voters known the facts and risks associated with these complex and constitutionally questionable measures. The polarizing and costly campaigns in these two cities – and certain legal challenges to come – could have been avoided by going the route that more than 240 jurisdictions in California have, solving their challenges at the bargaining table instead of at the ballot box.”

Translation: The will of the voters doesn’t matter and expect a nasty legal battle. Union negotiators are better suited to solve the problems than voters.

Reality:  Public employee unions have played the system for too long and the pendulum, even in blue California, has begun to swing in the opposite direction—reform.