SACRAMENTO (CN) - Lawmakers raked California State Bar Executive Director Elizabeth Rindskopf Parker over the coals Wednesday as they debated a bill that would allow the Bar to collect dues this year.
"The level of tone deafness is stunning," Assemblyman Brian Maienschein, R-San Diego, told Rindskopf Parker.
Maienschein said he was troubled by the watered-down, eleventh-hour effort to get a bar dues bill passed, and said the State Bar is no closer to clearly defining its public protection duties than it was five years ago.
He was furious that the Bar had even considered asking to raise its dues to address its backlog of attorney discipline cases.
"This is an organization that is not functioning. The level of just incompetence," Maienschein said, shaking his head. "I don't even know what to say to that. That you can even think to come here and ask for more money when every person here is saying you're not spending money well. Please do not even remotely consider coming back for a dues increase."
He added: "I'm going to so reluctantly support this today. But it's the last time. This needs to change dramatically."
Assemblyman Mark Stone, D-Scotts Valley, chairman of the Assembly Judiciary Committee that met Wednesday, urged fellow lawmakers to pass the bill out of committee despite their reservations that it does not require drastic reforms of the combination trade group and regulatory body.
"We need to come up with something to send to the Senate. I'm not sure that not having a Bar bill is the right answer," Stone said. "If it doesn't meet your standards, that's on me. I'm the one that walked this back intentionally, trying to make sure we have a Bar bill."
The Assembly revolted in May over what is usually routine legislation, demanding that the State Bar be held accountable for years of misspending, inaccurately reporting its finances and failing to properly discipline delinquent attorneys, including 300 unauthorized practice of law cases reportedly found sitting in a drawer.
The Assembly made Bar dues contingent on a series of reforms, including a shakeup of its board of trustees to get a majority of non-attorney members, and a legislative commission to study the possibility of splitting up its trade association and attorney discipline functions.
Stone had pushed those reforms to stop the vicious cycle of poor decision-making and to prevent antitrust violations: a problem inherent in having a regulatory body made up of market participants.
But Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye and Senate Judiciary Chairwoman Hannah Beth Jackson, D-Santa Barbara, roundly rejected those provisions. After negotiations broke down a few weeks ago, Stone introduced a new bill, SB 846.
Authored by Sen. Joel Anderson, R-El Cajon, SB 846 dropped those two key provisions in exchange for a majority-attorney board, favored by Jackson and Cantil-Sakauye, and a clearer definition of the Bar's mission, which he believes will go a long way toward holding the Bar accountable for its actions.
"If they are not guided by a principle of what their primary policy obligations are, they are going to be making decisions without an appropriate filter," Stone said Wednesday. He added that the Legislature asked the Bar five years ago to define its primary priority as protecting the public, and that he has yet to receive anything more than a laundry list of activities encompassing pretty much everything the Bar does.