SAN DIEGOSAN DIEGO — The long process of overturning San Diego’s Proposition B pension cuts took a key step forward Tuesday when Superior Court Judge Richard Strauss ruled that the successful 2012 ballot measure should be invalidated.
If opponents don’t appeal the ruling, it will allow city officials to remove from the city charter Proposition B’s elimination of pensions for all new hires except police officers.
Once that language is removed from the charter, city officials and labor unions can begin negotiations on how to “make whole” roughly 4,000 city workers hired since 2012 who have no pensions. Instead, they have 401(k)-style retirement plans.
Removing the language from the charter will also allow the city to resume giving pensions to new hires after a gap of more than eight years.
Labor leaders and city officials have said it’s inevitable Proposition B will be removed from the charter since 2018, when the California Supreme Court ruled the measure illegal because San Diego skipped key legal steps in placing it on the ballot.
But the Supreme Court decision did not invalidate the measure. Instead, the matter was kicked back to Superior Court, where Judge Strauss has listened to arguments from labor unions and Proposition B ers.
Labor unions say Proposition B must be invalidated because then-Mayor Jerry Sanders failed to negotiate the of Proposition B with union leaders before placing it on the ballot.
ers of Proposition B say the labor law violation shouldn’t invalidate the will of the people, which was expressed in their of the citizen’s initiative at a rate of more than 65 percent in June 2012.
On Tuesday, Judge Strauss said it’s not possible to separate the labor law violation from the citizen’s initiative.
“It’s clear that they were tied together,” said Strauss, explaining that Sanders said at the time that he intentionally avoided labor negotiations to get the pension cut measure on the ballot during an election year.
Since Tuesday’s ruling, the Lincoln Club and Republican ers of Proposition B have expressed frustration with the ruling by Judge Strauss. But they haven’t indicated whether they intend to appeal the ruling to the 4th District Court of Appeal.
San Diego is the only city in the state to eliminate pensions for most newly hired workers.
In June 2019, the City Council voted 6-3 to give up its fight to save Proposition B and instead the labor unions in seeking to invalidate it.
Mayor Todd Gloria said Tuesday night that he is ready to work closely with the City Council, city attorney and the labor unions “to chart a course forward that is in the best interest of San Diegans and the city employees that serve them.”
Staff writer Alex Riggins contributed to this story
