Bliss

Chris Wage at My Quiet Life suggests that Schwarzenegger's proposal to give 75% of punitive court damages to the state rather than the plaintiff is a "great idea."

I respectfully disagree. Seems like a good idea on the surface, but think about the second-order consequences a bit:

• We're giving the state a vested interest in private citizens' suits against one another, and in fact giving the state a benefit from a successful suit that it would not see in a failed suit. So we pull the state over to the side of the plaintiff in every lawsuit.


• Related to that, we're now tying part of the state budget to lawsuits. Oh, sure, maybe we SAY that we'll never budget that money in, but we all know how government works. Two years pass and suddenly lawsuit proceeds are funding public schools.


• Property forfeiture by proxy seems like a bad idea. The state gets some dummy to file a suit against someone with unpopular or "unpatriotic" opinions -- say this guy, for instance, and seizes 3/4 of his property. Erf. Bad.

That's just off the top of my head, and I'm neither devious nor a California state politician.

To keep Alberto Gonzales, liar and White House Counsel, off the bench.