The Real Cost of Prisons Weblog

The California Senate debate was much more spirited and there was substantial opposition to the bill on procedural, financial, and substantive grounds. The first vote fell well short with 11 opposed. As a two-thirds vote bill, 27 of the 40 Senators in the affirmative were needed for it to pass. A "call" was placed on the vote so that Senator Machado, the presenter of the bill in the Senate, could secure the votes necessary for it to pass. A number of other bills and resolutions were taken up by the Senate. Senator Perata asked several times if Machado wanted to "lift the call" and allow the voting to proceed again, but he declined. After almost an hour had passed, the Republican Senators went into a private caucus, leaving Democrats milling about the floor.
The bill passed shortly after Noon with exactly the votes needed, 27-10, when after the roll was called several times, Senator Negrete McLeod changed her vote from "no" to "aye." The bill received 18 Democratic votes and 9 Republican votes in the Senate. 4 Republicans and 6 Democrats opposed the bill. Two Republicans and one Democrat did not vote on it.

Senator Tom McClintock, a conservative Republican led off the debate on the bill after Senator Machado delivered his opening statement in presenting it. McClintock was principled and raised questions about the lack of any "cost savers" in the bill, citing the $42,000 per inmate per year involved in incarceration, a cost he said had astronomically increased in recent years, mostly under Governor Schwarzenegger. He also compared the six figure costs of construction of prison cells and bed per inmate with that of other states. His preferred solution--contracting out the custody of prisoners to private companies who can do so at much reduced costs.

McClintock also argued against the use of revenue bonds to finance the construction, which he argued, deprived the voters of their constitutional right to "vote on taxpayer supported debt." He spoke of the unprecedented borrowing in the bill.

Another issue raised by Republican Senators Aanestad and Cogdill involved the process of passing the bill was one of process and the lack of a public hearing and the bill being in print for all to see. Aanestad said of the Assembly's vote right after the amendments were maide "I'll wager you that of the 69 decision makers, that 65 never read the bill." He then said to his fellow Senators, "I'll bet very few of you have read the bill." He brought up the size of the bill, $15 billion by the time interest on the bonds was included and concluded "I'm pushing for a policy hearing."

Senator Perata vacated the Chair of the Senate and minced no words in his floor speech, which was powerful in support of the bill. He acknowledged its faults and predicted that actual implementation by the Governor will be fraught with difficulty. He started out: "There's not a Democrat here who likes this bill. Those who vote for it do so with reservations." As to the process, he said "If anyone believes this is a new issue, yuou have been sleeping through class all year," citing the multiple hearings of Senator Machado's committee on prisons.

Perata told those concerned about costs that if they thought they were writing big checks now, to wait for a Federal Court judge tells you to write even bigger ones.

Perata blistered the management of the state prisons, doubting that they can get the job done, saying "The one thing they tried to build, a death chamber, they couldn't build." This was an explicit reference to the recent fiasco where there was an attempt to hide costs to keep the construction under the $400,000 threshold which triggers a requirement the legislature be notified. He mentioned the fact that the Director of the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation said he didn't even know that construction was going on, and Perata said this did not build confidence in the Department.

He also spoke of the many times that legislators failed to ask when voting to increase sentences about the cost and criticized reaching to the ballot box to ratchet up sentences. He said that elected officials had fallen in love with "a most undocumented myth," that lengthy incarceration makes us safer and said Gray Davis and Arnold Schwarzenegger were each as much as fault for the problem of today as each other. In the end he said there was no better choice and the problem would only get worse if there was a failure to act immediately.

In the end, without a vote to spare, that is what has happened. Perata called it "a lousy vote" and that's a good characterization. He spoke from his heart today and gave a speech that should be watched or listened to as it becomes available.

I know that there will be many who will be disappointed about this bill, which was the product of intense negotiations. It will most probably be contested in court. Implementation will be the key and will require vigilance and perseverance so that the promise of rehabilitation will be part of what is reaped from this bill. There is much to do on sentencing, parole, and probation reform that the legislature and Governor need to work on and that are not part of this bill.

http://www.californiaprogressreport.com/2007/04/prison_bill_pas.html