| I've just received word that US District Judge Claudia Wilken has issued a preliminary injunction against the IHSS (in-home support services) cuts that were supposed to go into effect on November 1.
The suit was brought by SEIU four disability rights groups, UDW and three SEIU locals in response to the summer budget cuts. The California Disability Community Action Network has more information about the lawsuit. More details coming.
UPDATE: I've just seen that Josh Richman beat me to the punch by a few minutes.
U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken issued the preliminary injunction. In making the decision, she found that a written notice she stopped the state from sending out last week would have been constitutionally inadequate - too hard to understand, and giving too little time for appeals. She also found that the plaintiffs - advocates for disabled and elderly Californians, along with several labor unions - are likely to be able to prove at trial that the state was using inadequate standards to determine whose services would be cut. (CCT 10/19/09)
This in no way saves these cuts from going forward, it simply says that the methods that the state was going to use to make the cuts was all sorts of screwy. The "functional index" was going to be used to determine who gets what level of services, but many people would be cut off without really understanding what was happening. This is a vulnerable population, and to set them loose without a clear understanding of what is going on is even more unconscionable than the original cuts themselves. |
