Sturgeon II at 191 Cal.App.4that 355-356 held SBX2 11 to be "an interim response" to "either the constitutional issues we identified in Sturgeon I or the difficult problem of adopting a compensation scheme that deals with varying economic circumstances in an equitable and efficient manner."
In 2013, the Campaign for Judicial Integrity proposed legislation to remove the "supplemental judicial benefits" as the terms of the sitting judges as of July 1, 2008 expired.
Sturgeon III at 242 Cal.App.4that 1450-1451 removed the authorization of counties to "to elect to provide benefits for all judges in the county" in Section 2, Subdivision (b) of SBX2 11 and interpreted Section 2, Subdivision (a) of SBX2 11 to extend the payment of county and court "supplemental benefits" to new superior court judges in courts receiving such as of July 1, 2008 and again urged the Legislature to:
"revisit the trial court compensation problem. Groups as diverse as Judicial Watch [11] and the Daily Kos [12] continue to inveigh against county payments to trial judges. The 2009 Judicial Council Report, which section 6 of X2 11 authorized, noted wide disparities in judicial compensation around the state. Judges of the Superior Court of Los Angeles County now receive supplemental benefits worth about $57,000. [13] By contrast, judges in the Superior Courts of Alpine, Inyo, and San Benito Counties receive no supplemental benefits at all. [14] These are among the disparities in compensation around the state the Legislature might care to consider. Or might not."
"[12] See Fine, End California's Judicial Corruption Now; Stop 2015-16 Illegal Budget Payments to Judges! (June 1, 2015) [as of Dec. 14, 2015].)" (Emphasis added.)
The 2018 Emergency Legislation [the Fine Amendment] will end the judicial crisis by: (1) removing the county and court "local judicial benefits" or "supplemental benefit" payments to Superior Court judges; (2) replace such with a uniform compensation scale for all judges of courts of record based upon an increase of $57,000.00 per year; and (3) restore constitutional guarantees of access to the courts, due process and equal protection to California's residents.
The result will be: (1) no more county and court payments; (2) no more double taxation of county taxpayers for the same service provided by the same Superior Court judges; (3) no more disparities in judicial compensation; (4) the end of the approximate $500 million paid in "supplemental benefits", the release of approximately $35 million a year of county and court monies that were used for the payment of "local judicial benefit" or "supplemental benefit" payments by a county or court to a Superior Court judge for other county or court purposes; and (5) the restoring of integrity to the California judicial system.
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