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Paraphrasing the appropriate part of the California constitution: The State of California shall issue no bond or warrant, nor guarantee of a service of debt, without a vote and approval of the people.

Court decisions can not override a restriction upon the legislature and state government. These are not compensation, they are future bonds of debt upon the people of California to provide future benefits, in which they have had zero opportunity to approve.

I’d love to see this actually come up in a court battle, but they’ve drifted around it over and over again. IF every state employee’s benefits were paid for in full each year, this would be another matter. But it compels spending by the state for future sessions without financial approval of the state assembly and senate. It is, in all respects, simply service upon debt created out of thin air to buy votes (and to pad the pockets of politicians, since they get to dip into it too...)

If you did this at your work, you’d be in handcuffs and hauled off to jail for embezzlement. I don’t think this is as settled law as the unions imagine it to be. But so long as they continue to buy politicians by the bus load, I don’t see if changing short of a ballot initiative, forcing the state to actually follow the state constitution.

Then again, a constitutional amendment can be declared unconstitutional... So following the law isn’t exactly a high priority for anyone in Sacramento.

Law Restricts Pension Cuts For Existing Workers

The law can do as it pleases, but it cannot repeal physical laws or outlaw math.
The courts will NEVER have the power to tax working taxpayers beyond their ability to pay.

Not in the past. Not now. Not ever!

The Unions robbed working taxpayers blind with the complicity of elected representative who failed miserably, out of sheer incompetence, stupidity, or both.

That is relentlessly changing.
No court can stop it!

"because courts have generally viewed them as a vested right. "

Every two years or so the private company I work for changes the retirement benefits for current and future employees. In all cases the changes made our benefits worse.

How can the courts find that public employees have greater protection for their retirement benefits than private employees?

That’s because retirement benefits for current government employees are protected by decades of court decisions.

This is Associated Press and union bullsh*t. This has never been tried in court. Just this June the voters of San Jose passed a ballot measure (by 71% in a leftist NorCal city!) to modify the deal for current employees.

The unions pulled this same BS out and the mayor (Chuck Reed) said bring it on. The unions are taking it to court but they will lose. Nothing in the law says once hired your deal is frozen. They get to keep their past contributions but the future ones can be changed.

In the past, the city governments rolled over when sued because they were run by Rats who were in the pockets of the unions. But now even Democrats like Reed see that this is unsustainable and they are fighting it.

Even if the unions judge shop and find some leftist judge to agree with them, there simply is no money so the government will say to the judge like Andrew Jackson said to the Supremes: "You have made your ruling now you enforce it!"