County Sues to Overturn ‘Unconstitutional’ Measure H

County officials filed a lawsuit late Monday in an effort to overturn a successful ballot measure that would force the county to spend millions of dollars over the next 25 years on health care rather than paying off government debt.

The lawsuit, supported by three of the five supervisors, attacks the constitutionality of Measure H, which passed with 65% of the vote in the Nov. 7 election.

The measure guarantees that most of $750 million in tobacco settlement funds the county will receive over the next quarter century will be spent on health care.

The county’s lawsuit lists J. Brennan Cassidy, the immediate past president of the Orange County Medical Assn., as the sole defendant.

Cassidy, one of dozens of people who pushed for the initiative, said the lawsuit shows that supervisors want to “waste taxpayer dollars” to subvert the will of the voters.

“I think they’re just unhappy with the decision of the voters, intransigent in their position and unwilling to listen to reason,” said Cassidy, adding that he’s disappointed the county’s lawsuit does not list the voters of Orange County as co-defendants.

Cassidy and other Measure H proponents, including state Sen. Joe Dunn (D-Santa Ana), were confident they would prevail in court with intervention from the state attorney general’s office, which has offered to defend the measure on behalf of voters.

Dunn, an attorney, said he will join the Measure H legal defense team.

The state senator said he is disappointed the board moved forward with the lawsuit, saying he couldn’t recall such an “outright” legal confrontation between the board and voters.

While voters favored spending most of the yearly allotments of tobacco funds on health care, a majority of the county supervisors wanted to spend a chunk of the money paying off the county’s enormous bankruptcy debt.

County officials said paying down the bankruptcy debt would save the county $110 million in interest payments over 10 years.

According to the lawsuit, the measure violates the state’s Constitution by usurping the board’s authority to budget and spend money.

The suit argues that the initiative illegally binds future boards and interferes with their fiscal management of the county.

Some of those arguments come straight from the county’s lawsuit in August that sought to keep Measure H off the November ballot.

At that time, Superior Court Judge Jack K. Mandel ruled against the county but signaled his concern about lobbying groups using election-day initiatives to control county spending.

County Counsel Laurence M. Watson said the lawsuit’s purpose is to have a judge put the constitutional questions to rest.

“We believe it’s unconstitutional,” Watson said, adding that the county wants a ruling before July, when the measure takes affect.

James Campbell, a spokesman for Board Chairman Chuck Smith--who is in Washington on unrelated county business--said that the supervisors only want the court to interpret the law.

“If the court finds that Measure H is constitutional, the board will then obey the law and, hopefully, health care dollars will be spent on services to the people,” Campbell said.

Thomas W. Hiltachk, a Sacramento attorney who represented Cassidy in the county’s first lawsuit, said that he takes exception to Cassidy being named as a defendant now that Measure H is the law.

“I’m deeply disturbed by taxpayer funds being used to bring a lawsuit against a private individual who no longer has any legal obligation or ability to do anything with respect to Measure H. It’s now the law of Orange County,” Hiltachk said.