The Real Cost of Prisons Weblog

Lawmakers said there was little appetite to
consider a $918 million Senate-approved package
of bills that would let Schwarzenegger's
administration build 5,340 beds at 11 existing
prisons and help ease crowding in a system that
is more than 70 percent over capacity with
172,000 inmates.

The governor had asked lawmakers to approve a far
more ambitious, $6 billion, multi-prison building
plan in the special session he called that runs
through November.

While lawmakers could technically return to take
up the debate, Democratic legislators said there
was little interest in aiding the Republican
governor in what some saw as an election-year
effort.

"There was just no support for the governor's
proposals, either Democrat or Republican, and we
didn't want to embarrass the governor by putting
them up for a vote," said Steve Maviglio, a
spokesman for Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez,
D-Los Angeles.

Schwarzenegger promised to try again to persuade
lawmakers when they return in December and to
consider what he could do in the meantime to ease
overcrowding.

"We must act immediately to ensure the safety of
the public, correctional officers, and the men
and women in our custody," Schwarzenegger said in
a statement.

Schwarzenegger met privately Thursday with Mike
Jimenez, president of the powerful California
Correctional Peace Officers Association, assuring
him that he intends to keep working with the
union toward reform.

Top Schwarzenegger aides, including Chief of
Staff Susan Kennedy, a Democrat who enjoys good
relations with organized labor, lobbied lawmakers
throughout the day to take up at least some of
the prison bills. But with the prison guards'
labor contract still unresolved, the union
remained vehemently opposed to even the stopgap
prison package.

Chuck Alexander, the union's executive vice
president, denied any connection between the
deadlocked contract talks and what he labeled a
"quick-fix, piecemeal, do-nothing package."

"If these (bills) don't go through, we're hoping
they'll be motivated to come sit at the table
with all the stakeholders, including us,"
Alexander said.

Other state employee labor unions also opposed
the package that would transfer nearly 10,000
inmates to privately run prisons.

"I think a lot of the members realize that none
of this can be successful unless it has the
support of the work force," said Sen. George
Runner, R-Lancaster, who helped negotiate the
compromise bills. Most of the bills cleared the
Senate Wednesday with the minimum votes needed,
with Republicans generally opposing the
Democratic package.

Lawmakers were also at odds over the
administration's proposal to involuntarily send
up to 10,000 inmates to prisons in other states,
with Democrats opposing it.

"We just wasted a month in special session," said
Assemblyman Todd Spitzer, R-Orange. "We're
obviously not going to do anything about prisons
tonight, the courts are going to take over the
prisons and start releasing inmates." _________________________________________________________________

from the LA Times:
Meanwhile, as lawmakers debated dozens of bills
into the evening Thursday, Schwarzenegger's
prisons package languished. Like lobbyists for
the tribes and scores of other interest groups,
lobbyists for the California Correctional Peace
Officers Assn. spent hours this week crowded
outside the Assembly and Senate chambers,
buttonholing legislators.

The prisons bills represented a slimmed-down
version of the $6-billion package Schwarzenegger
proposed in June when he called a special
legislative session on the prison system. The
governor had warned that overcrowding had become
so severe a federal judge might order the release
of thousands of inmates.

But Democrats, criticizing the governor's
offerings, junked those bills and responded with
four of their own, with a far more modest price
tag of $918 million. One measure included the
governor's proposed transfer of 4,500 female
convicts, while others would let the
administration add 5,340 beds at 11 existing
prisons and begin planning for new medical
centers for inmates.

The Senate approved the bills late Wednesday. But the Assembly balked.

"We haven't had an opportunity to vet all this
legislation and to think thoroughly about what is
the best way to improve a failing prison system,
which we have here in California," Nuñez said.

"These are bad bills," said Lance Corcoran, a
spokesman for the guards union. "They are window
dressing, some sleight-of-hand gimmicks designed
to allow everybody to go home and say
everything's hunky-dory when it is not."

___________

from the Sacramento Bee:

The state correctional officers union, meanwhile, launched an all-out effort to derail a package of bills supported by Schwarzenegger and aimed at reducing overcrowding in California's 33 prisons.

With the prison measures having already cleared the state Senate, the California Correctional Peace Officers Association stationed teams of lobbyists and union officials -- more than a dozen in all -- outside the Assembly chambers and fanned their forces throughout the Capitol to buttonhole lawmakers on the final day of the legislative session.

"We're talking to anybody that will listen," CCPOA Vice President Chuck Alexander said in an interview. "We're telling them we need reform, real reform, and we support that. But this package is not reform. This is nothing more than a cover tactic on the part of whoever is running these issues to say, 'We did something.'"

Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation Acting Secretary James Tilton also worked the crowded halls of the Capitol in an effort to counteract the CCPOA onslaught.

But by midnight, the Legislature had not taken up the bills and Schwarzenegger issued a statement saying he would seek ways he could act unilaterally.

"The situation … is still critical and we must act immediately to ensure the safety of the public, correctional officers, and the men and women in our custody," Schwarzenegger said. "I will take executive action wherever possible and reintroduce a comprehensive proposal when the Legislature reconvenes."

Núñez spokesman Steve Maviglio said the prison package collapsed because "there was a bipartisan rejection of what the governor presented to the Legislature less than a month ago."

"Rather than embarrass the governor by putting it up for a vote, we'll continue on in the fall and after the election." he said.