SEIU Local 1000 and the Union of American Physicians and Dentists support AB 1655, the "Public Employees Bill of Rights Act." Here's what it would do:

The Association of Special Agents, a subset of the California Statewide Law Enforcement Association, had sought the temporary restraining order from Judge Timothy Frawley. He turned the association down on Friday after hearing brief arguments from both sides.

Many DOJ employees heeded the layoff warnings last year and moved on to other jobs or retired. As of this morning, about 73 sworn officers and 8 non-sworn staff were in department jobs that will be eliminated, DOJ spokeswoman Lynda Gledhill said in an email to The State Worker.

DOJ will terminate those workers on Friday, said ASA President Mike Loyd.

"They'll be handed their final check, shown the door and told, 'Thanks for your service,'" Loyd said.

When asked whether the ASA would keep up the fight, Loyd said, "Heck yeah."

The association alleges that Gov. Jerry Brown engineered the elimination of about 300 jobs -- most of them held by special agents in the department's anti-drug unit -- in retaliation for CSLEA's support of Republican Meg Whitman during the 2010 California gubernatorial race.

The Brown administration blamed the job cuts on Republicans' tax inflexibility during budget talks.

The Irvine Republican's measure, AB 1633, would cap pensions for workers who don't participate in Social Security at $100,000 per year. Workers who do participate in the federal program couldn't receive more than $80,000 per year from a state or local pension.

The cap would apply to pensions of employees hired on or after Jan. 1, 2013. Conflicting labor contracts in effect on that date would control until they expire, then the state law would be binding and could not be undone by subsequent union agreements.

On a related side note, Bee Capitol Bureau colleague Torey Van Oot, who covered the Democratic Party Convention in San Diego last weekend tells The State Worker than Gov. Jerry Brown didn't mention the "p-word," pensions, in his speech at the confab. Brown has put a 12-point pension reform plan before lawmakers and last month asked them to "do something real" to bring down governments' employee retirement costs.

PHOTO: Assemblyman Donald Wagner / www.asm.ca.gov

The California Correctional Peace Officers Association paid a total $1.1 million to four political consultants and a political lawyer last year, according to documents the union filed with the state.

Media strategy firm The Battin Group (formerly Voter Strategies Inc. and run by former Republican lawmaker Jim Battin) topped the list with $342,000 from CCPOA., followed by $220,000 to J. S. Peace & Associates, which is headed by former state lawmaker and "Attack of the Killer Tomatoes" producer Steve Peace.

Other CCPOA expenditures in 2011 included $200,000 to former Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata's firm, Perata Consulting LLC, about $200,000 more to attorney Wayne Ordos and $157,000 to McNally Temple Associates Inc., another consulting firm.

The union also gave $100,000 to the California Independent Voter Project, a non-profit organization that offers to pay the expenses of state lawmakers who attend an annual Hawaii conference. Peace is one of the non profit's principals.

CCPOA, like many players in the political arena gave money to both sides of the aisle. Last year it wrote checks totaling $110,000 to the California Democratic Party and $25,000 to the California Republican Party.

By our count, the union controlled or wholly subsidized at least nine PACs, although not all of them took in or paid out money last year. Click here for a list that includes the committees.

We focused on the six most active PACS and subtotaled individual expenditures and contributions of the biggest accounts. Access those figures by clicking the "expend totals" or "contrib totals" at the bottom of some tables.

Expenditures pages show everything the association spent on political action, including operating costs. Contributions pages break out donations to campaigns and political causes.To get a sense of political spending in California by other interest groups, check out Maplight.org. The California data on that site run through December 2010.

Here are the CCPOA numbers:

California's mobile hospitals are running out of money and time
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While GOP leaders call for smaller government, Okla. state workers near 6 years since pay hike
OKLAHOMA CITY -- Jess Callahan, a state social worker who helps provide services to the elderly, blind and disabled in Choctaw County, hasn't seen a pay raise since 2006, and he's not alone. (AP/ The Republic)

In Wisconsin, assessing a new labor law's impact
RACINE, Wisconsin -- James Ladwig recently took over the job of Racine County executive. He was sworn in last April, not long after Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker signed a controversial bill curtailing the bargaining rights of state and local workers. So with the new job, Ladwig got a new set of rules for governing his county. (Stateline)

The complaints run along two tracks. One comes from managers and supervisors in the five "off-budget" agencies named in the settlement. They're not represented by SEIU or any other unions and aren't part of the furlough agreement.

Callers have pointed out that when a union reaches a contract agreement at the bargaining table that the managers and supervisors attached to those covered workers usually receive similar terms.

The exempt employees calling and emailing us about the furlough settlement think the same should apply here to the furlough back pay agreement. Of course, that decision is up to the Brown administration and/or the agencies.

The other complaint comes from state worker blog users who think that settlement provisions that awarded back pay to rank-and-file workers in five "off budget" agencies unfairly and arbitrarily single out a select few employees for a special benefit.

It's a twist on the complaints we heard when employees working for constitutional officers avoided furlough. Ditto when the courts decided State Compensation Fund Employees were illegally furloughed awarded them back pay.

SEIU has said that it got the most it could from a losing legal hand.

What do you think?

The California Association of Highway Patrolmen took in nearly twice as much in contributions as it spent on political activities in 2011. Contributors gave the union $465,947, according to reports filed with the state. Only one contribution, $300 returned from Democratic Sen. Ron Calderon, exceeded the $100 threshold for itemized reporting, according to CAHP's filings.

Meanwhile, the association wrote checks for $223,415 to cover political activities. All but about $10,000 went to poltical campaigns, mostly via fundraisers. The largest expenses listed on the union's report were $50,000 for the Speaker's Cup golf tournament at Pebble Beach and $50,000 to the Pro Tem's Cup golf event at Torrey Pines.

We've embedded a spreadsheet below with pages that detail what CAHP spent on political activities last year and other pages that total up the money. You can access each page by clicking the tabs at the bottom of the table.

Expenditures page show everything the association spent on poltical action, including operating costs. Contributions pages break out donations to campaigns and political causes.To get a sense of political spending in California by other interest groups, check out Maplight.org. The California data on that site run through December 2010.

Local 1000 President Yvonne Walker has said that the union's legal team advised that broader litigation wasn't likely to win, so the union cut its losses and took what it could get from a settlement.

Paul Warrick, an associate governmental program analyst, sent an email to The State Worker that hits the tone of the complaints we've heard. We're publishing his email here, unedited and with his permission. He's speaking for himself, not his employer, colleagues or Local 1000:

Big whoop! Someone (or SEIU) should have pursued the larger Federal issue of equal pay for equal work. Everyone who receives a state payroll check should have been furloughed or no one should have been furloughed. Furloughs were happenstance. If you just happened to be an Office Technician, Staff Services Analyst, etc. in the wrong agency (based on funding source or other criteria), you got furloughed while your neighbor who was also an OT or SSA, but worked for another agency didn't get furloughed. It's just ridiculous.

Paul Warrick DSS

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Thanks to Blog User J for flagging this story for The State Worker.

Today's State Worker column breaks down which unions are in and which are out of the court fight over furloughs. The California Correctional Peace Officers Association and the California Statewide Law Enforcement Association are the latest to lay down arms.

CCPOA spokesman JeVaughn Baker said that the weight of several court decisions favoring the state pushed the union to stop its litigation: "We decided it's in the best interest of the association to focus on other issues."

SEIU Local 1000 and California Attorneys, Administrative Law Judges and Hearing Officers in State Employment also recently dropped their furlough litigation.

Meanwhile, the state's engineers and scientists are Alameda Superior Court No. RG10630312
Original petition: CCPOA v. Schwarzenegger (requires Java)

CSLEA's request for dismissal, Alameda Superior Court No. RG10507081
Original petition: CSLEA v. Schwarzenegger

CCPOA's request for dismissal: 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals
Original Complaint: Newton v. Schwarzenegger

The State Worker: Some California unions drop furlough cases; two soldier on
The California Correctional Peace Officers Association quietly dropped two furlough lawsuits last week, one in Alameda Superior Court and the other a federal case before the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. (Sacramento Bee)

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"It's a sad day for pension reform in California," said Aaron McLear, spokesman for Sacramento-based California Pension Reform.

Although the group had drafted two measures that qualified for signature collection, it couldn't raise the $2 million or so needed to mount the petition effort for either one.

In November, Calfornia Pension Reform submitted a proposal to put future state and local public employees into defined contribution plans and another measure that would have shifted future workers into hybrid pensions. In January, it received the title and summary for both, intending to determine which would poll better and then shop that plan to potential campaign donors.

The language that came back from Attorney General Kamala Harris' office was worded to make it unpopular with voters, the pension reform group complained. The language was "false and misleading," it said in a press statement today.

And that made it harder to find money, McLear said.

California Attorneys, Administrative Law Judges and Hearing Officers in State Employment reported political contributions of $154,200 and political expenditures of $206,443, according to records published by the state.

The expense report tallies all political spending, including the contributions figures that break out money that went to politicians and issues campaigning.

The California Democratic Central Committee received the most money, $37,700. Rank-and-file members contributed a little over $41,000 to the CASE PAC. Nearly all of that came in $10 donations. CASE represents roughly 3,400 employees.

We've embedded a spreadsheet below with pages that detail what CASE received and gave last year and other pages that total up the money. To get a sense of political spending in California by other interest groups, check out Maplight.org. The California data on the site run through December 2010.

A political action committees operated by SEIU Local 1000 gave $380,000 to campaigns and organizations last year, including nearly $195,000 to the Democratic State Central Committee of California, according to records filed with the state.

The union also donated a total of $21,000 to help retire 2010 campaign debts for Democrats such as Assemblyman Das Williams, D-Santa Barbara; Assemblyman Sandré Swanson, D-Alameda; and Assemblyman Bob Wieckowski, D-Fremont, among others.

One of the union's PACs donated several hundred dollars of staff time to politicians, including Controller John Chiang.

For a list of the union's political entities, click here. The union's reports to the state duplicated some expenditures. Note: The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1991 that public sector employees may not be compelled to subsidize political or ideological activities of public employee unions.

We've embedded a spreadsheet below that details how the union's various political entities received and gave last year. To get a sense of political spending in California by other interest groups, check out Maplight.org (the California data on the site run through December 2010).

Editor's note, 2:29 p.m.: An earlier version of this post incorrectly stated that unions could not use members' dues to fund PACs.

The losses in fiscal 2010-11 came from a $17.4 million drop in operating revenues and $8.6 million the self-funded PIA set aside in anticipation of settling union furlough lawsuits. The authority also paid $6.3 million to cover Other Post-Employment Benefits such as retiree health care and a $2.8 million expense from factory closures.

"If not for the furlough expense, the annual OPEB charge, and the onetime costs associated with factory closures, CALPIA would have continued its profitability in FY 2010-11," the report says.

The PIA oversees four inmate training programs that operate manufacturing, service, and agriculture industries at 22 correctional facilities. They produce everything from modular buildings and fire protection gear to furniture and pre-packaged meals. Most of what PIA makes is purchased by the state or other government entities.

More than 7,000 inmates participate, saving the state "more than $11 million annually in General Fund costs for rehabilitation positions that CDCR does not have to fund," the annual report says. Those inmates make between 30 and 95 cents per hour before deductions.

Participants without a high school diploma must earn a GED within two years to continue in the program. Joint Venture Program participants earn a comparable wage less deductions for things like taxes, room and board, crime victim compensation, government-ordered restitution such as child support. Inmates in the program also have to put money into a savings account.

Graduates from the PIA's Career Technical Education program, which gives inmates "hands-on experience in real world training," were 89 percent less likely to return to prison when compared with the prison system's general population, according to the report. Overall, PIA participants across the board had a 24 percent to 30 percent lower recidivism rate than the general prison population.