Justices Refuse to Overturn Ban on Welfare Cuts

The California Supreme Court on Tuesday let stand a lower court order preventing the Wilson Administration from making a 2.3% cut in welfare benefits this week.

State social services officials, acknowledging that court appeals had run out, said they would begin immediately notifying counties that welfare benefits would remain at their current levels.

In some counties, such as Los Angeles, they said checks have already been mailed that reflect the 2.3% reduction in benefits as of Sept. 1. Recipients in those counties, they said, will be compensated when they receive their next check in October.

Gov. Pete Wilson said the court action would cost the state an estimated $5.6 million a month and blamed advocates for the poor who had challenged the cuts in court for worsening the state’s financial condition.

“It is shameful that (a) self-appointed band of welfare advocates can substitute its distorted view of welfare reform and spending priorities for the fiscal policy decisions of two-thirds of both houses of the duly elected state Legislature,” he said.

But Melinda Bird, an attorney for the Western Center on Law & Poverty Inc., which provides legal representation for the poor, said the courts clearly had agreed with the advocates’ position.

Last week Superior Court Judge Stuart Pollak in San Francisco ruled that the state could not go ahead with the cuts because it had not obtained proper authorization from the federal government.

The cuts would have affected 2.7 million poor Californians, who are supported by Aid to Families With Dependent Children, a program financed primarily by the state and federal governments. For an average family of three, the cuts would have reduced monthly cash benefits from $607 to $593.

The state had obtained authorization for the cuts from the Bush Administration but that authorization was invalidated by the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in July. A three-judge panel on the court said federal officials had failed to consider the adverse impact the reductions in benefits would have on poor families.