For almost the entirety of the legislative session this year, there was an uncharacteristic order to the process. Certainly there was the dysfunctionality that is to be expected since the era of term limits, and there was a bit of the last-minute “…oh, we can put that in this bill” that caught people unaware and made a mockery of the rules of the Senate and the Assembly, but when Monday, Aug. 28, 2006 rolled around, there was still a sense that the 120 statesmen who make up the California legislature might depart quietly. Alas, poor citizens, it was not to be.
For those who acknowledge that workers’ compensation is not always the center of the universe, which probably does not include anyone reading this, the last week of the session was overrun by public policy pirates picking off the magical 41 and 21 needed to get a bill to the governor’s desk.
While the press lauded the statesmen in Sacramento for tackling such issues as greenhouse gases, minimum wage, and prescription drug benefits, how the legislature wound up passing these bills is far less encouraging. The words “gut and amend, “without reference to file,” and “committee hearing off the floor at the call of the chair” are code for “Well, we didn’t do anything in the first seven-and-a-half months of the session except pass a budget, so it’s time to get to work,” – or the also prevalent “Now that’s the end, we can do what we want with no bothersome good judgment to interfere with the lack of hearings, options or, heaven forbid, moderate ideas.”
And get to work they did – in our little island in the storm, as well. First it was the one-two punch with State Compensation Insurance Fund (SCIF). A very public confrontation with Sen. Jackie Speier, chair of the Senate Banking and Insurance Committee, over her Senate Bill 1452, had to wait until the bill was in the Assembly Appropriations Committee – where policy issues are not discussed – rather than her own committee when the bill was originally introduced. SCIF ultimately withdrew its opposition after this publication made SCIF’s expensive behind-the-scenes lobbying efforts public.
Then came Assembly Bill 2125, by outgoing Insurance Committee chair Juan Vargas, which was the Commissioner’s technical cleanup bill. After the bill passed all policy committees in both houses and went to the Senate floor, it was decided to address a smoldering issue – what to do if State Fund were to become insolvent? The governor and the commissioner came up with a plan, State Fund was a little slow on its response about dropping that pesky lawsuit against the commissioner challenging the commissioner’s authority to do virtually anything except sing “Nearer My God to Thee” if SCIF were to go down, and after a hastily convened Senate Banking and Insurance Committee hearing, where SCIF was – again – chided for its intransigence, the bill was forced down SCIF’s throat, passed, and is now on its way to a speedy and well-deserved signature.
But SCIF issues weren’t the only ones to be left to the last minute. Sailing off the horizon for most of the session, their Jolly Roger yet to be unfurled, were the applicants’ attorneys and their quest for delivering a benefit increase bill to the governor. Enter SB 815 (Perata), a much-anticipated effort that is going to increase benefits under the pretense that until all the effects of SB 899 were worked out, this, at least, would be a modest way to correct the unanticipated consequence of the reforms. Of course, that is not what it is at all. As anyone who can spell “workers’ compensation” knows, benefit increases are hard-dollar costs that stay with the system until the legislature repeals them – which the legislature never does.
If the applicants’ attorneys are correct in one of their many challenges to the permanent disability rating schedule, then they will have blown open a treasure chest of fees while doing nothing for workers whose injuries occurred prior to Jan. 1, 2007. With only a few days to go in the session, the bill’s fate was in doubt. Although there are many plausible political explanations for why the bill was passed, the fact remains that this, too, was a last-minute exercise, given a perfunctory hearing in the Senate Labor and Industrial Relations Committee, and summarily whisked off to the governor on a straight party line vote. The applicants’ attorneys and their compatriots can declare victory already because they got the bill to the governor’s desk. An extra ration of rum for all: Yo ho ho!
Much the same can be said of several other bills that are now awaiting action by the governor. AB 2068 (Nava), a bill that extends the current law on predesignation of the treating physician for an additional two years, generated a great deal of angst with the Chamber of Commerce and the public employers, but a deal was struck in the last two weeks with Speaker Nuñ, and the governor, making its becoming law a certainty.
AB 1862 (Vargas), which sailed through the session as a study of the problems associated with the current definition of first aid, now has appended to it language relating to third-party vendors who process pharmacy billings – an appendix many think will cause great harm to the ability to control pharmacy costs. You won’t find a committee hearing discussing that amendment, either.
The last two weeks of this legislative session will go down as one of the worst in history in terms of the toxic combination of last-minute deals and free-flowing fundraisers. The rules of the Senate and the Assembly are designed to foster debate and public participation, but when it comes to the end of session and those who descend upon Sacramento to ply their trade, the rules are, well, more like guidelines.
Who says terms limits don’t work. Arrgghh.