COMMISSION `CITIZENS' NOT INDEPENDENT.

Byline: JILL STEWART 

SO the governor, A.G. and other constitutional officers deserve an 18 percent raise, and the nation's highest-paid legislature gets a new raise, thanks to the ``independent'' California Citizens Compensation Commission?

All told, legislators will get $145,097 annually, including $32,000 tax-free for expenses if their districts aren't near Sacramento. The base of $113,097 will tower over that of New York's, where legislators get $79,500. The governor's salary, at $206,500, will be highest in the nation.

The ``citizens'' commission insists our pols need salaries that ``compete'' with private sector pay, and ``compete'' with the few states that also vastly overpay their pols, and ``compete'' with similar jobs in government.

Why is that? This is not the open market. People bludgeon each other for these posts because they want to be among the most powerful ``public servants'' around.

The Citizens Compensation Commission is a scam, and here's why: They're all insiders and political hacks chosen by former Gov. Gray Davis to boost pay to the stratosphere.

Cristina Vazquez is a far-left labor organizer who, incredibly, holds the ``compensation expert/economist'' seat on the commission. In truth, she's a strident leader of the sleazy Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees, which does a brisk business organizing illegal immigrants.

UNITE led a two-faced crusade against Kathie Lee Gifford for using sweatshops, but a report by the Labor Department's Wage and Hour Division (leaked to The Wall Street Journal) found that UNITE was itself ignoring mass violations of labor laws in New York.

In California, UNITE strong-arms regular folks, thinking it's still the 1930s. It ruined the Sorrento Coats factory in San Bernardino to punish 25 mostly minority women who -- disgusted by UNITE -- wanted to dump them. UNITE harangued Sorrento's sole customer into not placing orders, driving a solid business into bankruptcy. The jobs vanished.

Hard-core union honchos should not be in the same room where ``citizens'' decide pay raises for politicians -- the vast majority of whom, in Sacramento, needed lots of union money to win office.

Thomas Dominguez is an entrenched Democratic political fundraiser and Orange County sheriff's bomb expert trying hard to please big Dems like Bill Lockyer.

Lockyer and Dominguez schemed, but failed, to circumvent Orange County's Republican voters in 2003 by getting a Democrat appointed by Davis to the Board of Supervisors. Knowing voters would choose a Republican, Bill and Tom fought voter-approved Measure V, which gave voters the right to choose a supervisor. Lockyer, the most biased A.G. in years, presented the anti-voter case in court, where it was rejected.

Clearly, Bill's pal Tom should never, ever have a say in raises for Bill.

John W. Mack is the powerful chairman of the Los Angeles Police Commission, whose police department faces chronic fiscal needs from Sacramento. Local officials who want money from Sacramento should never be allowed on this bogus commission. Ever.

Lawrence Gotlieb, vice president of government and public affairs for KB Homes, squeezes favors from Sacramento pols. Little favors, you know? Like new laws and such.

According to The Sacramento Bee, on May 26, Gotlieb and others pressured spineless legislators to reject a law that would have discouraged home building in flood plains. As the Bee editorialized, ``builders pulled out the stops in blocking AB 3050. Politicians caved.'' Now Gotlieb has returned the favor to our bought-and-sold legislature. Sickening.

Bay Area law enforcement officer David K. Wong holds the ``general population'' seat on this pathetic commission. A hard-left party operative, he endorsed legislators Leland Yee (of the failed law to promote feng shui) and Mark Leno (of the failed effort to let sex predators caught with fewer than 100 pieces of child porn get softer treatment). Wong isn't qualified to decide salaries for mosquito abatement district.

I'm a reluctant Democrat. The rotting smell from this ``commission'' is the exact sort of thing that keeps the Democrats from regaining traction nationally. They are the first to call Republicans corrupt, but they're often worse.

Ted Costa, of the People's Advocate, where are you? Let Costa gather signatures to give voters the duty of deciding pay increases every four years. We'll soon see how ``competitive'' the voters think salaries of ``public servants'' need to be.