The second most powerful elected official in California, Assemply Speaker Fabio Nunez, is receiving $35,000 a year from a nonprofit arm of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor. Apparently legal, according to the Los Angeles Times, the arrangement reeks of corruption.

Kudos to the LAT for its investigative work. It rightly notes that Big Labor has many financially important issues directly affected by the State Legislature, so it has no business puting the Assembly's most powerful figure on a payroll.

This is further evidence of the depth of corruption, the legal and illegal kind, which has caused the nation's richest state to become a fiscal basket case.

Hat tip: Ed Lasky

Thomas Lifson  3 23 05