Supreme Court and the pension crisis

It is a basic precept of democracy that laws are crafted by legislative bodies, subject to vetoes by mayors, governors or presidents, and that laws cannot be imposed on citizens without going through this process. So how is it possible that governments in California are tied in knots by a legal theory that’s treated as law even though it was never passed by the Legislature and signed by the governor?

That should be the central question considered by the California Supreme Court on Dec. 5 when it takes up challenges to the state’s 2012 pension reform law, including its ban on the outrageous practice of allowing public employees to spike their pensions by buying years of service. The fire union local that sued over this provision argued that it violated the “California rule” — a legal theory arising out of a 1955 state Supreme Court ruling that holds that the pensions in place on the day a public employee is hired can never be reduced even for years not yet worked. Various legal analyses have shown this ruling cannot be based on any claim that it reflected the intent of the state Legislature.