Why is the CRPA such a bad deal?
A. The CRPA gives away many official reporter positions, 30 percent in the nine so-called protected counties. In many courts, misdemeanor matters are still reported by officials; such as Los Angeles, San Francisco, Santa Clara, and others. Additionally, the protections it purportedly provides have many loopholes that the court and Judicial Council can, and most assuredly will, use. As an example, there is no protection from layoffs due to budget cuts. Many court executives would probably consider this compromise a good deal because it provides the mechanism to drop even more court reporter positions than present law allows and permanently relieves the court from rehiring court reporters to fill those positions once the funding crisis is over.
