California Insider

The theory that by prohibiting defined benefit pensions the voters would also be banning death and disability benefits for (among others) the survivors of police and firefighters killed in the line of duty seems to have been shot down. Legislators, after all, were banned from getting any kind of pension in 1990, but they still have a death and disability plan, apparently a pretty generous one. Something tells me that if this issue were opened up by the voters and lawmakers were asked to create a new system for public safety workers there would be a bidding war on behalf of future widows and orphans. Maybe someone should float a bill now proposing that, for starters, no matter what happens in November, survivors of fallen officers should do no worse than legislators' families. Would anyone vote against it?

With Kevin Shelley leaving office today, the state Senate has set a date for the Rules Committee hearing on Bruce McPherson's confirmation: March 16.