Opinion ID: 1385357
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: reduction of judicial salaries as a violation of california constitution, article iii, section 4

Text: (9) Judges are state officers. (Cal. Const., art. VI, §§ 1, 16; see also Spreckles v. Graham (1924) 194 Cal. 516 [228 P. 1040].) Therefore, the prohibition against reducing state officers' salaries includes judicial salaries. (See fn. 2, ante. ) The word salaries in Proposition 6 (see fn. 2, ante ) must bear the same meaning in both contexts in which it appears in that constitutional provision. (See Miller v. Dunn (1887) 72 Cal. 462, 466 [14 P. 27].) Legislative history demonstrates that the provision [l]aws that set these salaries are appropriations was drafted in 1972 to forestall the effect of a budgetary line-item veto. Such a veto could not effectively eliminate funding for an existing provision of law  such as judges' salaries including a cost-of-living increase  when the statute is an appropriation. The word salaries in the last sentence of Proposition 6 is thus intended to mean cost-of-living salaries because the appropriating law then provided for annual cost-of-living adjustments. It follows that the provision in Proposition 6 that [s]alaries of elected state officers may not be reduced during their term of office forecloses during that term any limitation on cost-of-living increases even though such increases were first provided by the Legislature during that same term. To the extent that the 1976 amendment to Government Code section 68203 contemplates such limitations it is unconstitutional. Policies underlying Proposition 6 support our interpretation. The primary purpose of that constitutional provision is to strengthen the independence of all three branches of the government, [8] including the judiciary. Security of both tenure and subsistence are important factors in creating and maintaining an independent judiciary. These factors are met by insuring relatively long, fixed terms of office (Cal. Const., art. VI, § 16; Gov. Code, § 71145) and foreclosing reduction in salary during term of office. Should the state arbitrarily limit the cost-of-living salary, the level of subsistence would be reduced. Defendants rely on Atkins v. United States (1977) 556 F.2d 1028 [214 Ct.Cl. 186]. Atkins involved a claim by federal judges that Congress unconstitutionally reduced salaries by refusing to increase salary levels in the face of continuing inflation. However, the federal judges, unlike plaintiff judges, did not have the benefit of a guaranteed statutory cost-of-living provision. Moreover, no action was ever taken to place a limitation on salaries already fixed by Congress. In contrast, the Legislature has provided California judges with a cost-of-living provision as part of their established salaries.