Arnold’s Opposition Negative on WC Reform Ambitions By Robert Warne - January 9, 2004 Based on the statements various politicians issued for the record following the governor’s charge to bring him a solid work comp reform package by March 1st, it’s clear that some Democrats aren’t going to roll over easy.
Senate President Pro Tem John Burton, flat out told the Sacramento Bee that the deadline is totally unrealistic.
Insurance Commissioner John Garamendi said that the March 1st deadline could be met, but that Governor Schwarzenegger is smoking steroids if he thinks $11 billion can be cut from the system.
He explained to the Associated Press that the governor’s plan has serious constitutional issues and has contradictions.
But in the Governor’s defense, Senator Charles Poochigian described Schwarzenegger's proposal as a "carefully assembled collection of ideas that work in other jurisdictions effectively," according to the AP.
Whatever emerges by March 1, it is not going to be complete workers' compensation reform, Senator Richard Alarcon told the Bee.
The California Applicants' Attorneys Association and the California Labor Federation are urging legislators to hold out for the injured worker and greater regulatory control over carriers.
Garamendi did tell the Bee that, “These issues have been discussed for years.”
The governor knows this and doesn’t want the Legislature to back him into a corner so the issues can be discussed another year. The March deadline gives him a little over a month to throw his weight behind an initiative so the necessary signatures can be gathered.
The tables have definitely turned. In 2002 the threat of a ballot measure and democratic disenfranchisement by the same people fighting further comp reforms forced Governor Gray Davis to sign the sweeping benefits increase bill, AB 749. And somehow, that bill was produced before March that year.
|