Biden humiliating himself by attacking state pension reform

The Biden administration is threatening to cut off billions of dollars of California transit funding if the state doesn’t capitulate to union demands to roll back public employee pension reforms.

Fortunately, U.S. District Court Judge Kimberly Mueller last week temporarily put the brakes on this political blackmail, which threatens federal money for capital projects and operations funding that has kept Bay Area transit agencies from the brink of insolvency during the pandemic.

This has become a battle between the Democratic governor of California and the Democratic president of the United States. And Mueller, in granting the state’s request for a preliminary injunction, sent clear signals that the president is likely to lose.

President Biden should save himself from a national humiliation. He should permanently end this legally flawed, financially irresponsible gambit that only serves to expose his fealty to labor unions at the expense of taxpayers, transit riders, the economic recovery and the environment.

If Biden has any hope of resurrecting his signature Build Back Better initiative or assuaging concerns of crucial moderate voters in next year’s congressional midterm elections, he must demonstrate that his administration will dole out federal money wisely and equitably.

Sadly, when it comes to California transit funding, he’s doing just the opposite, providing ammunition for his critics that he is willing to weaponize the public purse to benefit his political backers.

The genesis of this embarrassing legal showdown dates to 2012, when the state Legislature passed, and then-Gov. Jerry Brown signed, pension law changes aimed at restoring some semblance of fiscal stability to the pension systems serving California public employees.

The new state law left existing employees’ pension benefits mostly unchanged but created a second tier for future employees that put a reasonable cap on the benefits and required those workers contribute more to the cost.

Other public employees in California have abided by the change, recognizing that it shores up the pension systems that fund their retirements and eases the financial chokehold on state and local government agencies.

But transit workers have tried to skirt the state rules. They cite a 1964 federal law that was designed to ensure public transit agencies didn’t bust unions as they acquired financially troubled private transportation companies.

The Urban Mass Transit Act made federal transportation funding contingent on Labor Department determination that contract benefits would be preserved, and bargaining rights would continue. The law remains in effect today.

The Obama and Biden administrations, along with the nationwide Amalgamated Transit Union, have argued that the federal law overrides the state’s ability to impose changes to its pension laws. The Obama administration threatened to cut off federal funding in 2013 and now the Biden administration is trying to do the same.

But Mueller in 2014 ruled that the federal transit act does not insulate transit workers from statewide changes that affect other workers as well and does not foreclose all state regulator powers. After Donald Trump was elected president, his administration stopped fighting the California pension law changes.

Now that Biden is in office, he has resurrected the battle. Whereas the 2014 legal case affected funding for two transit agencies — in the Sacramento and Monterey-Salinas areas — the Biden administration in October tried to reimpose the funding cutoff statewide.

Withholding that federal money “deprives financially beleaguered California public transit agencies that serve essential workers and our most vulnerable residents of critical support,” Gov. Gavin Newsom wrote in a Nov. 10 letter to the Biden administration. The pot of jeopardized money includes billions for BART, Santa Clara VTA and Golden Gate Transit.

Mueller is clearly not amused that she must reconsider the same legal arguments she confronted in 2014, nor that the Biden administration has dismissed her earlier analysis of federal labor law as “unhelpful.” (Hint: It’s generally not a good idea to thumb your nose at a federal judge.)

Mueller has scheduled a hearing on the current case for Feb. 11. In the meantime, she last week enjoined the federal government from blocking the processing of transit grant applications from California. To grant the state’s preliminary injunction request, she had to find that, when the case is fully heard in six weeks, the state is likely to prevail.

It’s always dicey to try to predict how a judge will ultimately rule. But, in this case, it seems unlikely Mueller will reverse her 2014 decision. Biden should save himself from an ignominious legal defeat.