HUGE news for home care workers and those they care for. In response to SEIU lawsuit, a U.S. District Court judge issued an injunction Thursday afternoon ordering the state of California to halt a proposed $2 cut in wages for the state's 400,000 home care workers.

The injunction has the effect of stopping pay cuts in all California counties that were planning on passing the state cut through to their home care workers.

The injunction, issued by federal judge Claudia Wilken, was in response to a lawsuit filed by the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), which has 250,000 home care members in California. The lawsuit alleges the wage cut violates the federal Medicaid Law, Americans with Disabilities Act, and Rehabilitation Act.

"This ruling is bringing hope to hundreds of thousands of home care consumers and workers all across the state," said Mary Harms, a home care worker in Contra Costa County. "We had no choice but to ask the court to help us after the governor and legislature let everyone down and put so many people in danger."

The enjoined state budget cuts would have slashed homecare workers' wages to as low as $9.50 an hour. The wage cuts would have forced thousands of homecare providers to leave their employment to seek living-wage jobs, forcing frail seniors and people with disabilities to enter nursing homes or other residential institutions.

By overwhelming margins, California voters rejected the false solutions on the special election ballot in the May 19th statewide election, sending Gov. Schwarzenegger and the Legislature back to the drawing board. SEIU members helped defeat several propositions that would have hobbled the state's public services with devastating cuts to community-based mental health services, health care, education and child welfare. Voters rejected a permanent cap on public service spending by a margin of two to one.

What was on the ballot: Prop. 1A put caps on funding for public services, using low-funded crisis years as the baseline, and also greatly enhanced the Governor's power to make mid-year budget cuts to pretty much any department without having to ask the Legislature. SEIU also opposed Prop. 1D and 1E, which raided children's health and mental health funds. By defeating Proposition 1E in particular, union members helped prevent more than $460 million in cuts to vital mental health services--and protect the successful Mental Health Services Act approved by California voters five years ago.

SEIU members in California joined with clients, families, workers, advocates, and community leaders in the effort to defeat Prop. 1A , 1D and 1E, making phone calls to thousands of SEIU members, participating in the May 13 rallies in downtown Los Angeles and outreach to members at their worksites and online. And their hard work paid off by a wide margin: 65.9 percent of voters said "no" to Prop. 1A, 65.8 percent rejected Proposition 1D and 66.4 percent voted "no" on Proposition 1E. Read more about the election results in the San Francisco Chronicle.