Brown delivers opinion on legislative pay cuts

In response to a request from legislative leaders, Attorney General Edmund G Brown Jr. today concluded that the state Constitution allows the California Citizens Compensation Commission to reduce the salaries of legislators and other elected officials in the middle of their terms. 

Legislative leaders questioned the Commission's authority after it voted earlier this year to reduce the salaries of elected officials by 18 percent.

Brown pointed to the voters' 1990 approval of Proposition 112, which requires the Commission to "adjust the annual salaries of state officers" each year, in confirming the Commission's authority to reduce salaries. 

According to Brown, Proposition 112 contradicts and supercedes a ballot measure adopted in 1972 that prohibited mid-term salary reductions.

"Any other interpretation would require assuming against all evidence that the voters in 1990 intended mid-term annual adjustments to only go up and never down, even in the face of a faltering economy and huge budget deficits," Brown said.