Supreme Court May Revive State Law on Welfare Cuts

The Supreme Court announced Friday that it will consider reviving a California law that cuts welfare benefits for one year for newcomers to the state.

The 1992 law, part of Gov. Pete Wilson’s bid to reduce the state’s $5.5-billion annual welfare program, was struck down as unconstitutional by a federal judge in Sacramento because it penalized new residents.

In a series of past rulings, a liberal-dominated Supreme Court had said that the Constitution does not permit states to discriminate against new residents by refusing medical or welfare benefits.

But the court’s decision to hear California’s appeal may portend a major change in the law. Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, a dissenter in the earlier rulings, has maintained that states should be free to pay benefits as they see fit. He may now believe that he has a majority to rewrite the constitutional standard.

Other high-benefit states such as New York, Minnesota and Illinois also have sought to limit benefits temporarily for new residents but they too have been blocked by court rulings.

“This is great news,” state Atty. Gen. Dan Lungren said. A ruling in favor of the state is a needed first step “to reform the welfare system in California, as well as the rest of the country,” he said.

But a Los Angeles lawyer who led the challenge to the reduced benefits said the state’s restrictions would not save much money in total but would “punish battered women and their children when they flee back home to California.”

If the lower benefits for new residents had been in effect this year, the state would have saved $22 million, officials said.

“If the existing benefits (for all recipients) were reduced by 76 cents a month, they could save that much money. This is driven by political hype,” said Mark Rosenbaum of the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California.

California’s welfare benefits are the nation’s fourth-highest and the “welfare magnet” draws poor people into the state, Wilson said in pressing for the so-called “two-tier benefit” plan.

State lawyers contended that these lower benefits are legal because they are temporary and do not stop people from immigrating to California from other states. New residents who are eligible for welfare are paid the benefit they would have received in the state they left. The dispute does not affect illegal immigrants, who are not eligible for welfare.

Unquestionably, though, the law would have a major impact on people who move to California from Southern states, which pay much lower welfare benefits.

For example, Deshawn Green, a Sacramento native, lived in Louisiana for several years and gave birth to two children. As a full-fledged California resident with two children, she would have been eligible for a grant of $624 a month. But under the 1992 law, she would have received only $190 a month, the welfare benefit in Louisiana. She became the lead plaintiff in the case before the Supreme Court.

A second plaintiff, Debby Venturella, also a mother with two children, returned to California after several years in Oklahoma but would have received $341 a month, Oklahoma’s benefit.

The third plaintiff, Diana Bertollt, a mother with one child, moved to California from Colorado in 1992. While the state’s standard welfare benefit would have been $504 a month, she would have received $280 a month under the two-tier plan.

But Judge Levi struck down the law before it took effect, saying that the Constitution “does not permit significant distinctions between new and old residents based on the duration of their residency.” The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed his decision in June. The high court will hear arguments in the case in January and issue a ruling by July.

The court also agreed to decide:

* Whether states can force private insurers to pay higher hospital charges (Cuomo vs. Travelers Insurance, 93-1414). New York imposes a hospital surcharge on patients who have private insurance but not those who have Medicaid or Blue Cross. A federal appeals court struck the practice down as a violation of federal law, but the Clinton Administration urged the justices to uphold this form of hospital cost regulation.

* Whether truckers who cause accidents can be sued because they failed to install anti-lock brakes (Freightliner Corp. vs. Myrick, 94-286). State courts have allowed such suits but truckers say they are preempted by federal laws that set safety standards for vehicles.