Pay for California's top elected officials will be slashed by 18 percent next month, one year earlier than expected, to abide by an opinion issued Thursday from Attorney General Jerry Brown.
Just in time for the holiday season, lawmakers will have their salaries cut by $20,917 annually while California's 12 top state officials will see reductions of at least $28,644 apiece.
"There are legal scholars that might quibble, but I think the vast majority of Californians would give Jerry Brown a standing ovation," said John J. Pitney Jr., professor of politics at Claremont McKenna College.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, through a spokesman, applauded the cuts.
"The governor doesn't take a salary, and everyone in his administration has taken a 14 percent pay cut," said press secretary Aaron McLear. "He believes the Legislature, just like everyone else in state government, ought to be cutting back."
Brown concluded that a pay cut approved in May by the state's independent salary-setting commission is not barred by the state constitution from taking effect in midterm. The reductions are expected to save the state about $2.9 million a year.
Brown did not address another issue: Whether the pay panel had the authority to approve, as it did in July, a separate 18 percent cut in lawmakers' benefits, including their car allowance and $173 per diem for living expenses in Sacramento. That cut also is planned for next month.
Controller John Chiang will reduce his salary and that of other elected officials on Dec. 7, spokeswoman Hallye Jordan said.
"We were awaiting the opinion of the state's top attorney, and we will abide by his opinion," Jordan said.
Chiang will continue to wait for guidance from Brown on the issues of per diem and legislative benefits, Jordan said.
Lawmakers will see their salaries drop from $116,208 to $95,291. Pay for statewide constitutional officers will range from $173,987 for the governor to $130,490 for the lieutenant governor, the secretary of state and members of the Board of Equalization.
State Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner voluntarily cut his pay by 18 percent in June. Michelle Steel of the Board of Equalization has taken a 5 percent cut. Thirty-seven of the 40 senators and 32 of the 79 current Assembly members also have requested cuts, most of them by 5 percent, records show.
Charles Murray, chairman of the seven-member pay commission, said that Brown's opinion coincides with the desire of most voters.
"We represent the average Californian," Murray said. "He or she knows someone out of work or on furlough, and to have representatives in office block their salary cut would be ludicrous."
Nobody talked publicly Thursday of attempting to block the pay cut, although there were hints of disagreement with Brown's opinion.
Assembly Speaker Karen Bass, in a written statement, said that Assembly members "are no strangers to stepping up in these tough times."
"We will obviously follow the law and the constitution - as every state agency has the duty to do, including the compensation commission," she said.
Brown acknowledged Thursday that other legal experts disagree with him.
"I am aware of three legal opinions - including an informal opinion from an attorney in my own Opinions Unit - that come to a contrary conclusion," he wrote.
Prior to Brown's opinion, the commission's pay-cutting decision was scheduled to take effect in December 2010, except for 20 senators whose terms do not expire until 2012.
State officials had been operating under the assumption, buoyed by an opinion from Brown's office, that elected officials' salaries could be raised but not lowered in midterm.
Brown's informal opinion was a response to questions from Jon Waldie and Greg Schmidt - administrators of the Assembly and Senate, respectively - asking whether a pay cut in midterm is legal and questioning the pay panel's authority over per diem and car allowances. Brown answered just one of the three questions.
The attorney general based his opinion largely on Proposition 112, passed in 1990 to create the independent pay commission, and Proposition 1F, adopted this year to bar the salaries of elected officials from rising in years of state deficit.
Both propositions require the commission to adjust the salaries of state elected officials annually, Brown noted, opining that the two measures supersede a 1972 ballot measure that prohibited midterm salary reductions. Despite the contrary views, Brown defended his informal opinion, saying that the voters' intent clearly is to allow salaries to be raised or lowered annually.
Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg's office referred questions to Schmidt, who said he had not yet received Brown's opinion, would do nothing unilaterally, and expected the Senate Rules Committee to review the matter in early December.
Assemblyman Chuck DeVore, R-Irvine, accepted Brown's opinion and said, "Our family will just have to scrimp and save just like every other California family."
Sen. Alan Lowenthal, D-Long Beach, said he voluntarily accepted an 18 percent pay cut nearly a year ago and that it would be foolish for his colleagues to file a court challenge.
"We can't fiddle while Rome burns," he said. "We can't be seen as elite."
