Linda Soubirous understood what it meant to the families of police officers and firefighters when state lawmakers ensured that they would receive health insurance for life if their loved ones were killed in the line of duty.
She was 31, with a year-old daughter and pregnant, when her husband, a Riverside County sheriff's deputy, was fatally shot three years earlier, in 1993. Soon after, the county compounded the devastation by refusing to pay for the family's insurance as if he had voluntarily quit his job.
Now, Soubirous is worried that other survivors will endure the same trauma if Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger succeeds with a little-noticed plan to indefinitely suspend the 1996 law because of the state's budget crisis, along with about 30 others put in place over decades to address the needs of Californians. The laws, known as state mandates, put requirements on local governments and obligate the state to pay for them.
Some affect huge groups of people, such as the law that made absentee ballots available to voters, a privilege used by up to 60% of voters. But most, like the law for families of peace officers -- costing an estimated $1 million a year -- protect small, vulnerable groups.
"It just helped the families so much," said Soubirous, 47. . "It was beyond words to me. I know that the state is in just a huge mess and the governor has to make some terrible choices, but I just think that these families have already paid such a huge price."
By suspending the laws, which would require agreement from the Legislature, the state could save $100 million a year, a fraction of its projected $24-billion deficit. And counties and cities would not have to follow dictates that have existed in some cases since the 1970s.
Local governments would no longer have to run programs to help infants exposed to drugs. They would not have to keep stray animals alive for three extra days before euthanizing them. No longer would they have to conduct an AIDS test on suspects whose blood comes in contact with their victims, or notify those who report stolen cars of the location and condition of recovered vehicles.
If local officials chose to continue the programs, they would have to find money for them, even though many have had to cut budgets already and the governor wants the state to borrow from their revenues.
