Justice Arabian Lashes Legislators in Interview

SAN FRANCISCO — In a rare public attack, Justice Armand Arabian has lashed out at California legislators for what he said were “disgraceful” attempts to reduce the state Supreme Court’s power and drastically trim its budget.

“Now this is no longer a Legislature doing the people’s business,” Arabian said in an interview published in Verdict, the journal of the Assn. of Southern California Defense Counsel. “This is a gang out for retaliation.”

Arabian, a 1990 appointee of former Republican Gov. George Deukmejian, cited a series of ultimately unsuccessful moves against the court in the Legislature this year.

The actions took place after the justices upheld Proposition 140, a voter-approved initiative limiting legislative terms and mandating a 38% cut in the lawmakers’ operating budget.

Legislators gave preliminary approval to both an identical 38% cut in the court’s budget and a sweeping constitutional amendment revoking the court’s authority to order governmental units to pay court judgments or fund state programs. Ultimately the court ended up with a 3% cut in its $15.8-million budget and the constitutional amendment failed to pass.

Arabian, known for writing colorful court opinions, said in the interview that widespread public frustration had led to the passage of Proposition 140.

“The messenger of the peoples’ will, the Supreme Court, is being viewed by the Legislature as a villain,” he said. “ . . . The Legislature didn’t like that big dose of medicine (in the initiative) so they proposed a mutual sufferance.”

“They consider themselves ‘homeboys’ who have been evicted by the public. And so they are now going to take it out on whomever they can find. They want to throw concrete at our heads,” Arabian said.

He added: “As a member of the legal community, I find this conduct disgraceful. . . . As a citizen, I’m appalled.”

Arabian was asked in the interview if he agreed that the Legislature, designed in the Constitution to be most responsive to democratic influences, has now been diverted from that role, leaving it to the judiciary to listen to the people.

“We have become more than ever the bedrock of government,” he replied. “And that fact makes their pathetic perception palpable, that we have become too powerful or dangerous. This is what the battle is all about today.”

The 57-year-old justice went on to say that the lawmakers’ actions after the passage of Proposition 140 may well indicate “that the people had more sense than they were given credit for.”

“They knew exactly what they were doing, and they knew the character of who they were dealing with because they’d seen it long enough,” he said.