Mr. Brown, are you listening?

WSJ has a nice story on the 401k style savings plan for Utah:

As Illinois and New Jersey struggle to reform their broken public pension plans, we thought you might like to hear a success story for change. Witness Utah, which last March replaced defined benefit pensions with a 401(k)-style plan for new state and municipal workers.
The sponsor of the Utah reform was Senator Dan Liljenquist, who watched in horror during the 2008 stock market plunge as the state pension fund lost 22% of its assets. From nearly 100% funded in 2007, it fell to 70% funded by 2009.

Looks like a good California compromise between my suggestion of territorial reversion to yours of business as usual.