County of Riverside v. Superior Court

MORENO, J., Concurring.

I concur in the majority’s result. I write separately because I believe the majority’s analysis requires some qualification.

*301 The majority recognizes that the governing body of counties are expressly authorized under article XI, section 1, subdivision (b) of the California Constitution to provide for the “compensation ... of employees,” and that, by necessary implication, the Legislature is not constitutionally authorized to set employee compensation. (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 285.) The majority further recognizes that the Legislature may nonetheless regulate to some degree the process by which such compensation is negotiated. (Maj. opn., ante, at pp. 287-288.) The critical distinction for the majority is between “regulating labor relations” and “depriving the county entirely of its authority to set employee salaries.” (Id. at p. 288, italics omitted.) This distinction explains, for example, our upholding the imposition of labor relations statutes such as the Meyers-Milias-Brown Act on local public agencies (see People ex rel. Seal Beach Police Officers Assn. v. City of Seal Beach (1984) 36 Cal.3d 591 [ 205 Cal.Rptr. 794 , 685 P.2d 1145 ]) while holding unconstitutional a law denying certain state funds to such agencies that grant their employees cost-of-living increases (Sonoma County Organization of Public Employees v. County of Sonoma (1979) 23 Cal.3d 296, 317-318 [ 152 Cal.Rptr. 903 , 591 P.2d 1 ] (County of Sonoma)).

Although this analysis may be useful, it should not be employed inflexibly. Even in the area of local employee compensation, the distinction between matters of local and statewide concern is not necessarily invariable. As we have stated, the “ ‘constitutional concept of municipal affairs . . . changes with the changing conditions upon which it is to operate. What may at one time have been a matter of local concern may at a later time become a matter of state concern controlled by the general laws of the state.’ ” {Bishop v. City of San Jose (1969) 1 Cal.3d 56, 63 [ 81 Cal.Rptr. 465 , 460 P.2d 137 ].) Although California Constitution, article XI, section 1, subdivision (b) appears to preclude the Legislature from setting outright the compensation of county employees, I am not persuaded that state regulation of wage-setting procedures, even when that regulation intrudes upon the county’s autonomy as much as it does in the present case, is forever forbidden. The question we left open in County of Sonoma, supra, 23 Cal.3d at page 318 , is whether similarly intrusive legislation may nonetheless be justified by the existence of a statewide emergency, which the legislation is reasonably designed to address.

That same question is, I believe, left open in this case. There can be no doubt that satisfactory labor relations between local governments and public safety employees is a matter that may transcend local concerns. We need not decide whether some kind of statewide emergency might constitutionally justify the legislation at issue here. No such emergency has been alleged. Senate Bill No. 402 (1999-2000 Reg. Sess.) appears to be *302 prophylactic rather than responsive to an actual crisis in public safety officer wages, recruitment, or job performance. Thus, even if the presumption of unconstitutionality for legislation such as Senate Bill No. 402 may be rebutted by an adequate showing of extraordinary state interest, that presumption was not rebutted in this case.