By Ben Velderman
EAGnews.org

LOS ANGELES – “Pervy” teachers can breathe easier now that the California Teachers Association has killed a proposed law that would have made it easier and less expensive for schools to fire employees charged with sexual misconduct.

The bill, which was written by Democratic state Sen. Alex Padilla, “would have truncated the (firing) process, allowing a school board to make the final dismissal decision after a recommendation by an administrative law judge and permitting evidence more than four years old to be used,” reports KFI News.

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Padilla’s bill, which sailed through the state Senate, was in response to the recent arrest of an elementary school teacher who was charged with inflicting lewd and despicable acts upon his students. The case has “highlighted how difficult it is to remove (such teachers), typically taking years and incurring hefty legal fees through a labyrinthine process,” writes KFI News.

Most Californians would probably agree that schools should be allowed to swiftly remove depraved and dangerous teachers from the payroll, without having to spend a small fortune in legal fees.

But the state’s largest teachers union, the CTA, convinced enough lawmakers in the General Assembly that such a law would violate a teacher’s right to due process. Padilla’s bill died in committee earlier this week.

That’s a bogus charge. Padilla’s bill would have allowed accused teachers “to retain counsel and present a defense and witnesses, request a hearing by an independent arbiter and to appeal the board’s decision to a court,” KFI News reports.

All of the above represents due process.

It’s no secret that teacher unions exist to protect the interests of adults, even if some children get hurt in the process.

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And nobody is surprised when California lawmakers fold to union pressure, like they did in this scenario. Many of those lawmakers get big bucks from the unions at election time, and they’re expected to stick to the union playbook when the game is on the line.

“Some observers saw politics at play,” the news site reports. “The CTA is one of the state’s most lavish spenders in political campaigns and has access to a huge swath of voters.”

In the end, it appears the union’s checkbook proved more important to some lawmakers than protecting children from predatory teachers – especially during an election year.

Los Angeles Superintendent John Deasy and three school board members issued a joint statement, questioning the legislators’ judgment.

“Is it really more important for (lawmakers) to satisfy union demands than to change a system that is not in the best interest of parents and children?” the group asked, according to the news site.

Many Californians already understood that CTA leaders were morally dead inside. Now they see that many of their elected leaders are, too.