The last three years have been the hardest for state budgets since the depression, and virtually every state has cut services. Most often, it is the poor, the young, and the elderly who are most hurt, as 34 states cut K-12 education, 31 health care, and 29 elderly and disabled services.
More than 30 states also have raised taxes to some degree, but some have simply gone too far and violated longstanding commitments to their citizens. When that happens, usually because of ideologically driven lawmakers, the only protection that many citizens have is the courts. In state after state, the courts have been forced to step in and stop the most ravaging budget-slashers.
As Michael Cooper of The Times recently reported, courts have sharply rebuked several states for breaking the law in cutting back vital services and improperly using new revenue sources. Governors and legislators can rage about judicial activism and unwarranted intervention, but in many cases the voiceless, including schoolchildren, prisoners and the poor, have no other protection.
In California earlier this month, a federal court ordered the state to increase its payments to foster parents, two-and-a-half years after the state was found to have violated the federal Child Welfare Act. The Legislature included an extra $10.7 million in the budget for the higher rates, which it had not otherwise been willing to pay. A few weeks before that, the United States Supreme Court said California could no longer crowd prisoners into dangerous conditions, a situation long ignored by the state.
The New Jersey Supreme Court last month upbraided Gov. Chris Christie for cutting the schools budget so sharply that he violated a court order requiring a proper education in poor districts. It ordered another $500 million in school spending. Governor Christie’s sputtering that the court trespassed on his responsibility would be more persuasive if he had made any attempt to meet his obligations, instead of cutting taxes and then pleading poverty.
The North Carolina courts are examining whether state cutbacks there violate court orders, and similar lawsuits have been filed in Kansas. In the words of John Robb, a lawyer for several Kansas school districts: “Just because the checkbook is empty doesn’t mean that the constitutional standard is swept away.”
These court actions are a warning to Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York, who has proposed to cut $1.2 billion of the school money necessary to fulfill the 2006 court order that children be provided a sound basic education. When lawmakers ignore their fundamental responsibilities, it’s good to know there is a judge who will step in.