California’s Democrat-controlled legislature and governor last week enacted a law that is a de facto severe rebuke to Janet Napolitano, President of the University of California, and former Secretary of Homeland Security.  It is now a crime to do what she did when she obstructed a state auditor.

The national media were oblivious, and even in California, the formal move to criminalize her on-the-record behavior garnered little attention. The editorial board of the San Diego Union-Tribune  is an honorable exception:

The still-stunning decision by University of California President Janet Napolitano to interfere with a state audit — by removing and weakening criticism of her office’s performance from individual UC campuses — has gotten the harsh rebuke it deserves. It came in the form of Assembly Bill 562, which Gov. Jerry Brown signed this week. Under the new law, a state agency’s decision to interfere with, impede or obstruct a state audit requested by the Legislature or required by statute is now a misdemeanor crime with a fine of up to $5,000.

How Napolitano thought her behavior was acceptable in this matter remains incomprehensible.

AT covered the audit itself Napolitano’s outrageous interference and pro-forma apology. The legislature decided, to its shame, to kill a plan to forensically audit Napolitano’s massive budget (28.5 billion dollars) to uncover other misdeeds. The prospect of turning over that rock and seeing what crawled out apparently was too much for the progressives who rule roughly 35 million (no one knows how many illegals are in the state) Californians, and spend well in excess of a hundred billion dollars a year.

Still, the flouting of the state legislature by a bureaucrat, even a high level one, was too much.

But how much real world impact will there be? The Union Tribune editors are skeptical, as am I:

The University of California’s resistance to meaningful oversight — even on basics such as how it spends public funds — has been a problem for years, long preceding Napolitano’s hiring as president in 2013. Given that UC’s independence is guaranteed in California’s Constitution, this may not change any time soon. But at least there’s now a state law that makes clear this independence doesn’t extend to sabotaging official state audits.

Napolitano has made no public comment that I can find on the law that criminalizes her behavior.