Published 12:00 am PST Saturday, December 22, 2007
A Democratic legislative leader and a firebrand Republican promised tough going Friday for a Schwarzenegger administration proposal to cut the state's prison population by 28,000 over the next two years.
Early releases are "DOA" with Assembly Republicans, said Jose Solorio, D-Santa Ana, chairman of the Assembly Public Safety Committee. He said Democrats' reaction would range from raising questions to outright opposition of the administration's budget proposal.
"Many of us are going to have some very strong concerns about whether it's the direction we want to begin taking," Solorio said.
Meanwhile, Assemblyman Todd Spitzer, R-Orange, one of his party's leaders on criminal justice issues, said the proposal to release the so-called nonviolent, nonserious, non-sex offenders in the final 20 months of their terms would undermine Assembly Bill 900. The $7.9 billion measure was enacted this year to add 53,000 prison and jail beds and more fully establish rehabilitation as the philosophical underpinning of California's correctional system.
"By letting people out 20 months early, which is supposed to be when they get their re-entry skills, they're not going to get them at all, so recidivism is going to get worse," Spitzer said. "This budget plan is a forfeiture of AB 900 principles, which was supposed to change how we treat criminality in California."
Gubernatorial spokesman Adam Mendelsohn said Friday that the administration still has not made a final decision on the budget proposal that would save the state $1.112 billion over the next two fiscal years. The governor has called for 10 percent spending cuts in every agency, which in the $9.9 billion Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, almost certainly would require substantial reductions in the inmate population of about 172,000 and the parolee population of 127,000, and in a labor force of 64,000.
Mendelsohn said that, with the state facing a $14 billion deficit, the governor faces difficult decisions as he prepares to unveil his budget proposal Jan. 10.
"With raising taxes not being an option," Mendelsohn said, "you have to look at very severe cuts."
Schwarzenegger was re-elected to office last year on a campaign that included a no-new-taxes pledge. Republicans in the Legislature have vowed – and have the numbers – to block any tax increases, which require two-thirds support of lawmakers.
Also on Friday, Schwarzenegger's office announced that the state is $3.3 billion in the hole in the current fiscal year and that the governor is calling for a special legislative session to begin Jan. 10 to address what he has declared a "fiscal emergency."
According to details of the corrections budget proposal made available to The Bee, the administration's plan calls for the release of lower-risk offenders in the final 20 months of their terms to reduce the prison population by 22,159 in the 2008-09 fiscal year.
Schwarzenegger's budget writers also are proposing a shift to a "summary" parole system that would result in far fewer offenders being sent back to prison on technical violations and criminal infractions, but still would subject them to searches by local police. That plan would reduce the prison population by another 6,249 inmates.
Combined, the two proposals would reduce the payroll in the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation by 5,854 employees. The two proposals would require legislative approval. The budget bill requires a two-thirds vote.
Under the state Penal Code, about 35 crimes are listed as "serious" or "violent" for the purposes of the state's "three-strikes" law. Those offenders – convicted on charges ranging from murder to rape, robbery, burglary or sex or firearm offenses – would be excluded from the early releases.
Victims' advocates say that the exclusions aren't wide enough and that other convicts serving time for elder, child and spousal abuse, stalking, false imprisonment, weapons and other charges could still get out before their statutory time is up.
San Bernardino County District Attorney Michael Ramos said local law enforcement leaders have demanded that the administration "add exclusions" to the definition of a lower-risk offender. As for early releases, Ramos said they "won't happen without a fight" from county sheriffs and district attorneys.
Republican political consultant Ray McNally said that if the proposals go through, Schwarzenegger's political career will be all but over.
"It's pretty clear, the governor has decided not to run for U.S. Senate or other political office," said McNally, whose clients include the California Correctional Peace Officers Association. "You can't release 22,000 people from prison and expect to ever get elected to another office again. I think he's made his decision to retire from politics."
The budget proposal came amid motions filed in two federal class-action cases to cap the prison population because overcrowding is hindering the state's effort to provide inmates with constitutionally adequate medical and mental health care.
Inmates' rights lawyer Don Specter of the Prison Law Office, who is representing plaintiffs in both suits, said the proposed early releases amount to "nothing" as far as the federal cases are concerned.
"If and when it's part of the budget, we'll deal with it at that point," Specter said.
Trial on the motions had been scheduled for February, but the date was vacated last week by a three-judge court that first must decide whether to order the state to turn over thousands of documents to the plaintiffs.