Silva’s Switch Means Measure H Stands

Supervisor Jim Silva announced Monday that he won’t provide the critical third vote for the county to appeal a recent court ruling upholding last year’s voter-approved health spending initiative.

The five-member Board of Supervisors will meet at 5 p.m. today in closed session to discuss whether to appeal last week’s ruling by court Commissioner Jane D. Myers. Myers upheld the constitutionality of Measure H, which requires the county to spend on health care most of the millions of dollars it will receive from the national tobacco litigation settlement.

Supervisors Todd Spitzer and Tom Wilson, who supported Measure H, said last week that they won’t vote for an appeal.

Silva said Monday that he has decided it is time for the county to “focus on county issues” instead of spending money and effort on further court action. He was among the three-vote board majority that opposed Measure H and voted to challenge it in court.

“The county should implement the initiative in the spirit in which it was intended,” Silva said. The measure takes effect July 1, the start of the county’s new fiscal year, which gives officials enough time to incorporate its restrictions into the budget, he said.

Spitzer said he and Wilson welcome Silva’s change of heart and said they’ll ask Supervisors Chuck Smith and Cynthia Coad to make the vote unanimous.

Smith said Monday that he hadn’t made up his mind whether the county should appeal the court ruling but, given Silva’s statement, there isn’t enough support to pursue it.

“That’ll kill it,” Smith said. “I think [Silva’s] statement is premature. We haven’t heard the facts yet from our counsel.”

Coad was out of town and couldn’t be reached for comment.

J. Brennan Cassidy, the lead proponent of Measure H, said he hoped Silva’s announcement would put an end to any thought of an appeal.

“It’s not appropriate to appeal [the ruling] because it’s in the best interests of the county, the voters and the health care community to move on and implement Measure H as intended,” Cassidy said.

Cassidy was named as a defendant in the county’s case and was represented by several attorneys, including state Atty. Gen. Bill Lockyer, who intervened by arguing the public’s right to the initiative process, and state Sen. Joe Dunn (D-Santa Ana).

Measure H requires that 80% of an expected $750 million in proceeds from the tobacco settlement over the next 25 years be spent on health care and anti-smoking programs. The rest is earmarked for law enforcement. The county expects to receive payments of about $30 million a year.

Health care leaders negotiated with supervisors for nearly two years on how to spend the money, but talks ended without agreement. Supervisors favored spending most of the money on jails and repayment of debt from the county’s 1994 bankruptcy.

Undaunted, health care advocates raised $700,000 for the initiative, mostly from hospitals, doctors and clinics.

The county argued after the measure’s passage that it interfered with the Board of Supervisors’ management and administrative authority.

County attorneys had used some of the same arguments in successfully challenging the constitutionality of another voter-approved measure that would have made it harder to build a new airport at the closed El Toro Marine base. Measure F was overturned by a Los Angeles County judge in December, after the case was moved from Orange County.

Silva said his decision against an appeal of Measure H has no relationship to how he would vote if an appellate court issues a future ruling that Measure F is constitutional.

“This applies only to Measure H,” he said.