Erwin Chemerinsky, controversial Dean of the new UC Irvine Law School, prefers to make it easier to raise taxes rather than support a Constitutional Convention to solve California's budget mess. In an opinion piece for the Los Angeles Times, Chemerinsky says:
I have no real objection to a convention. I just don't believe we can count on it to solve our problems -- and certainly not in a timely fashion. Therefore, even if convention proponents continue to move toward establishing one, action must still be taken now to address California's most serious problems.
For example, an initiative should be placed on the ballot as quickly as possible to eliminate the two-thirds requirement for passage of the state budget and of new taxes. Only two other states in the country have such an antidemocratic requirement, and it is an enormous obstacle to responsible budgeting. The current crisis hopefully will provide the impetus for passage of this reform. But if such an initiative cannot get approved, there is little reason to believe that a new constitution that includes this change could get approved either.
But nowhere does Chemerinsky mention that there has been substantial growth in spending in California which is a large part of the problem. Indeed, the University of California itself has lavished huge salaries and other benefits upon top administrators which has led a bipartisan group of California lawmakers recently to propose amending the state's constitution to give the legislature additional authority over the UC system: Supporters of the proposal said they were fed up with high salaries for administrators and rising tuition at the University of California. Sen. Leland Yee, a Democrat and a longtime critic of the university, said the university's leaders were not being held accountable to the public.
And the new law school which Chemerinsky heads was itself controversial as reported here at AT many times in the past. Editor Thomas Lifson wrote extensively about the hiring, firing, and then rehiring of Chemerinsky as the school's first dean along with an earlier article about the lack of need for more law schools in California. The latest budget proposal from Gov. Schwarzenegger (R) would cut the UC system's budget by $500 million.
Perhaps the governing body of the UC system, the Board of Regents, could help out by eliminating the unneeded, expensive law school. Surely this move would not result in a shortage of lawyers in California.
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