PD Editorial: Recycling

<p>The ranks of the unemployed in California declined by one last week.</p><p>Democrat Carole Migden, who lost her re-election bid in the June primary, was named to the California Integrated Waste Management Board just four days after relinquishing her state Senate seat.</p><p>Migden's sinecure, courtesy of Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, came barely a week after two other ex-legislators -- former state Sen. Sheila</p><p>Kuehl, D-Santa Monica, and former Assemblyman John Laird, D-Santa</p><p>Cruz -- were appointed to waste board seats controlled by the Legislature.</p><p>Their qualifications for the $132,000-a-year job?</p><p>Well, let's just say this may be one of those times when who you know is more important than what you know.</p><p>And the waste board isn't the only soft landing for out-of-work politicians, their aides and even their spouses. They also can be found on the state Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board, the California Medical Assistance Commission and other panels that pay six-figure salaries plus expenses and, in some cases, car allowances while meeting only once or twice a month.</p><p>Some of these boards perform important functions -- regulating industries and professions, protecting consumers and injured workers, exercising oversight over government agencies.</p><p>There is, however, a good case for eliminating the waste board, which shares responsibility for recycling with the Department of Conservation. Several audits have found the board duplicative as well as slow and bureaucratic.</p><p>The board is funded by fees charged at state-owned dumps, so eliminating it won't reduce the deficit. Still it could be consolidated with the Conservation Department, streamlining government. Besides, it often seems as if the board is primarily a source of patronage and a temporary weigh station for unemployed legislators waiting for the next office to open.</p><p>State Sen. Wesley Chesbro, who at least has a background and genuine expertise in recycling, moved from the waste board to the state Assembly in 2000, returned to the board when term limits kicked in six years later and was sworn into the Senate last week. His departure created one of the vacancies for the new class of ex-legislators.</p><p>State Sen. Pat Wiggins also moved to the waste board after term limits pushed her out of the Assembly in 2004. Two waste board seats opened after the 2006 election, one of them because Wiggins was elected to the state Senate. And one of those vacancies was filled by . . . Chesbro.</p><p>You could call it recycling. Or, better yet, you could call it a waste of public funds.</p>