Taxpayers Challenge $7.4 Billion Prison Bond
Recent Cases
The State of California illegally approved issuance of $7.4 billion in "lease-revenue bonds" to build facilities for 53,000 more state and county prisoners, Californians United for a Responsible Budget claims in Superior Court.
Plaintiffs CURB and individual taxpayers claim AB 900, signed into law in 2007, violates the state constitution because it was not approved by voters and is deceptively and illegally described as a revenue bond.
The lawsuit comes as California faces an annual budget deficit of nearly $20 billion. A similar budget deficit led to the recall of Gov. Gray Davis and his replacement by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a defendant in this case.
"Article XVI, Section 1 of the California Constitution requires voter approval for all long-term debts greater than $300,000. However, the state contends that the AB 900 bonds do not require voter approval because they are secured only by 'lease' payments. This lawsuit contends the opposite: namely, that the $7.4 billion in lease-revenue bonds in AB 900 are actual debts that will further impair the credit of the state, and that require voter approval before they can be incurred," the complaint states.
"A revenue bond is backed by the future revenue stream created by a given construction project. For example, a revenue bond allows a cit or the state to build a tool bridge or a convention center and then to repay the debt with user fees generated by the project. ... Prisons, however, do not generate revenue. ... Under the lease-revenue bond transactions at issue here, the state will not receive any funds from the operation of the new prison facilities financed by the bonds, but will instead incur substantial additional costs - in excess of $1.4 billion each year. ...
"In the past, the state itself clearly recognized that bonds used to finance prison construction had to satisfy the constitutional requirement of voter approval. Until 1996, the state routinely used general obligation bonds to finance prisons and submitted proposed prison expansion projects to the voters. However, the last two times that state did so, in 1990 and again in 1996, the voters rejected the prison bonds. The state has not submitted any of its prison expansion plans to the voters since 1996."
Related listings
-
Class Claims Wells Fargo Forecloses Illegally
Recent Cases 05/01/2008Wells Fargo Home Mortgage illegally forecloses on homes by falsely accusing homebuyers who have filed for Chapter 13 bankruptcy of being delinquent on their mortgages, by falsely inflated amounts, by assessing "hundreds of millions of dollars" for il...
-
Court Revives Suit Over New Year's Party Arrests
Recent Cases 04/30/2008The 11th Circuit reinstated their lawsuit over the events that led deputies to arrest and Taser the lead guitarist for the rock band Rush and his son during a 2003 New Year's Eve party at a Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Florida, after the father-son duo made...
-
Michael Douglas Owes Him $1M, Pal Says
Recent Cases 04/29/2008Actor-producer Howard Zuker says Michael Douglas forced him out of the company the two men co-founded, American Entertainment Holding Co., owing him a promised $1 million bonus. Zuker appeared under the name Zach Norman in "Romancing the Stone," "Nig...
Does a car or truck accident count as a work injury?
If an employee is injured in a car crash while on the job, they are eligible to receive workers’ compensation benefits. “On the job” injuries are not limited to accidents and injuries that happen inside the workplace, they may also include injuries suffered away from an employee’s place of work while performing a job-related task, such as making a delivery or traveling to a client meeting.
Regular commutes to and from work don’t usually count. If you get into an accident on your way in on a regular workday, it’s probably not considered a work injury for the purposes of workers’ compensation.
If you drive around as part of your job, an injury on the road or loading/unloading accident is likely a work injury. If you don’t typically drive around for work but are required to drive for the benefit of your employer, that would be a work injury in many cases.
If you are out of town for work, pretty much any driving would count as work related. For traveling employees, any accidents or injuries that happen on a work trip, even while not technically working, can be considered a work injury. The reason is because you wouldn’t be in that town in the first place, had you not been on a work trip.
Workers’ compensation claims for truck drivers, traveling employees and work-related injuries that occur away from the job site can be challenging and complex. At Krol, Bongiorno & Given, we understand that many families depend on the income of an injured worker, and we are proud of our record protecting the injured and disabled. We have handled well over 30,000 claims for injured workers throughout the state of Illinois.