California's Democratic Derailment
Politicians ignore the legal caveats that voters added to
the bullet train. Sept. 12, 2014 6:42 p.m. ET
In theory at least, courts and ballot referenda are checks
on legislative tyranny. A California appellate court has effectively done away
with both by ruling that the legal requirements of a bond measure approved by
voters for the state's bullet train are merely "guidance."
Californians ought to try this law-as-guidance defense when they're stopped for
speeding.
Six years ago voters approved a referendum authorizing $9
billion in bonds for high-speed rail construction, including language with
stringent "taxpayer protections." These stipulations were, among
other things, that the state high-speed rail authority present a detailed
preliminary plan to the legislature identifying funding sources and
environmental clearances for the train's first "usable segment" prior
to a bond appropriation.
The legislature in 2012 green-lighted the bonds while
ignoring these stipulations. The rail authority had pinpointed merely $6
billion of the estimated $31.5 billion necessary to complete the first 300-mile
segment from Merced to San Fernando. Only 30 miles of environmental clearances
had been certified.
Last year Sacramento County Superior Court Judge Michael
Kenny ruled that the authority "abused its discretion by approving a
funding plan that did not comply with the requirements of the law." But in
July Sacramento's Third Appellate District sanctioned the lawlessness with a
decision as impressive for its cognitive dissonance as its legal afflatus.
On the one hand, the court opined that "voters clearly
intended to place the Authority in a financial straitjacket by establishing a
mandatory multistep process to ensure the financial viability of the
project." But then the judges ruled that the challenge to the
legislature's invalid bond appropriation and authority's preliminary plan,
"however deficient," was in effect moot.
The court could require the authority to redo its plan, but
the judges say that would be unnecessary since the Director of Finance must
still approve a rigorous final plan before the authority can spend the bond
revenue. In other words, the law's procedural requirements don't matter.
Yet the bond referendum had ordered a preliminary plan for
legislative review precisely so lawmakers could force the rail authority to
address their concerns before appropriating the bonds. This added a modicum of
political accountability.
So here we have the spectacle of legislators ignoring the
very taxpayer protections that they had used to gull voters into approving a
ballot measure that might never have passed without those protections. The
lesson is that politicians will grab any new power or spending authority voters
give them. They'll blow through the caveats and dare voters to sue to stop
them.
As for the courts, they're supposed to enforce the law as
written. California's Supreme Court now has an opportunity to do what the
appellate judges did not and order Sacramento to follow the bond language. At
stake are the rule of law and democratic governance in the Golden State.
Source:
http://online.wsj.com/articles/californias-democratic-derailment-1410561761
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