When it comes to Californians’ right to fairly access our justice system, few things are more maddening than learning that artificial impediments such as limits to government’s ability to use technology often deprive us of that right.
And when you hear that public employee unions’ big-money contributions to sitting legislators in order to protect their highly paid members’ jobs is behind the inability to use tech for what tech does best, it’s doubly maddening.
Such is very much the case in our courts currently. A huge shortage of certified court reporters in our state is leaving many Californians in the justice system without the ability to appeal their cases. That’s what happened to one San Diego woman who wanted to appeal a court commissioner’s decision against her in her quest to get a restraining order against an abusive husband. Court reporters weren’t available for all of her court dates. Without a written record “it makes it virtually impossible to win an appeal,” one attorney told her, as Ryan Sabalow at the nonprofit news site CalMatters reports.
Here’s the tech problem: union lobbying by the SEIU means that, even when no reporters are available, state law, with a few exceptions, bans recording in courtrooms, even though many courts have recording devices. “It’s absolutely outraging (if) it’s that easy to, you know, flip a switch and be able to record,” the San Diego woman said.
It certainly is. And the fact that only the wealthy could consider hiring a private court reporter for around $3,000 creates a clear inequity in our system. In response, San Mateo Democratic Assemblymember Diane Papan’s Assembly Bill 882 “would lift the ban on recording in civil cases for three years to give the courts time to hire more reporters and ease the shortage,” CalMatters reports.
Unfortunately, it’s a deeply flawed bill, backed by the SEIU, whose member reporters’ median pay with benefits is — get this — over $200,000 a year. Under the guise of lifting the ban on audio recording, it might make it even harder to record, because those who can’t afford a private reporter have to request in writing a recording a day before a hearing, which those without an attorney are unlikely to know about. The issue needs real reform, not fake union-coddling.
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