It's not the most high profile race, but it does have some interesting candidates. Gloria Romero is a state Senator, representing portions of East LA and the San Gabriel Valley. Tom Torlakson, is a long-time Bay Area politician. And then we have a political neophyte with an interesting background in education, Larry Aceves. I've not heard about any Republicans jumping into this race, but it's technically non-partisan. All candidates are in one heat in the June 2010 primary, with the top two going on to the November general if nobody exceeds 50%.
As of right now, Asm. Torlakson has a cash lead, but Sen. Romero is right behind and Mr. Aceves has done a respectable job raising money to be considered a strong candidate.
The League of Women Voters sponsored a forum in Baldwin Park last night for candidates in the May 19 special election to replace Hilda Solis in the Congress. The two front-runners in the race, Gil Cedillo and Judy Chu, emphasized their strengths.
Cedillo said he has had about 80 of his bills signed into law and said he has worked with the governor to save 25,000 jobs. Chu told the audience that she was proud to have the endorsement "of everybody in the family" of Labor Secretary Hilda Solis, who held the congressional seat until her cabinet appointment this year.
At the forum at Baldwin Park's Julia McNeill Senior Center, many of the candidates agreed on some issues, including the need for immigration reform that provides a path to citizenship, eliminating tax loopholes for corporations using offshore accounts to shelter income and the need to reform education, especially regarding the federal No Child Left Behind law.
With two weeks to go, the signals I'm getting suggest that Gil Cedillo is nervous. The massive unforced error of those negative Emanuel Pleitez mailers makes me believe that Cedillo fears Pleitez is capturing a good bit of the Hispanic vote. The earlier negative mailers on Judy Chu showed a similar lack of substance (attacking someone for returning tax refunds OWED?). Negative mailers don't inspire turnout, they suppress it. And the May 19 election will already feature low turnout. Which magnifies the importance of GOTV, and with the Democratic Party and key labor groups having endorsed Chu, I would probably be throwing the kitchen sink at everybody in the race myself if I were Cedillo.
What I'd prefer to hear about, instead of who endorsed whom and such and such negative attack, are concerns of the local area. El Monte is crashing. The city made 60% of its tax revenue off of the auto dealerships that lined the city, and with the demise of the auto industry throwing auto sales off the cliff, revenue has shrunk. Many cities with clusters of dealerships will soon face the same problem. What can be done at the federal level to diversify the local economy, and shouldn't the efforts to revive the economy in auto manufacturing states like Michigan extend to cities with a proliferation of car lots like El Monte? If anyone from the campaigns is reading, maybe we can get an answer to that.
(A tangled web being woven in CA-32, with discrete sets of competing interests. - promoted by David Dayen)
A little bird told me that Labor Secretary-designee U.S. Representative Hilda Solis would love to endorse Judy Chu to replace her in Congress representing the 32nd District but the Obama Administration has told her that Cabinet secretaries can not get involved in the political fight to replace them. State Senator Gil Cedillo is the only other declared candidate in the potential special election, after Gloria Romerodropped out of the race, endorsing Cedillo, and announced her intention to run for State Superintendent of Education in 2010. Romero also later endorsed Los Angeles Unified School District Board President Monica Garcia for her 24th District State Senate seat.
Capitol Weekly has an article in the Thursday January 22 edition on Solis' confirmation process that also mentions some intriguing details on the intricate positioning that other politicians are doing to fill in the holes in the Southern California political power structure as one of their own is elevated in Washington.
Some news was made at the 45th Assembly District elections on Sunday January 11th where MadProfessahwas elected to the California Democratic State Central Committee. State Senator Gloria Romero who last week announced that she would not run for Hilda Solis' soon-to-be-vacant seat in the 31st Congressional district was present at Arco Iris Restaurant in Highland Park and while there she endorsed current LA Unified School District Board President Monica Garcia as her immediate successor to the 24th State Senate district. This must have been something of a surprise toAssemblymember Kevin De León, whose chief of staff was in the room and running the DSCC elections. De León is termed out in 2012, but surely he was hoping to be promoted to the upper chamber and would have considered running for the 24th District seat in 2010.
Since I live in both AD-45 and SD-24 as well as Garcia's Los Angeles school district (#2) I will be keeping close tabs on this race.
Monica Garcia has a lesbian sister and was very outspoken in her opposition to Proposition 8. I know that she is very close to Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and has been seen as his strongest surrogate on the school board. De León is also a favorite of the Mayor's, and is often described as "the BFF" of former Assembly Speaker Fabian Nuñez.
I have to admit that this is kind of unexpected. Not only did State Sen. Gil Cedillo announce his intention to run for Congress in the seat soon to be vacated by incoming Labor Secretary Hilda Solis, but Gloria Romero, who was widely expected to run for the seat, abruptly decided to bow out, endorsing Cedillo and announcing her intention to run for State Superintendent of Public Instruction instead.
Here's a bit from Romero's statement:
I have evaluated the wonderful opportunities before me and have chosen to listen to my heart.
My passion is education. I understand that education is the civil rights issue of our time -- the great equalizer in America . My commitment -- particularly now as the Chair of both the powerful Senate Education Committee and Senate Budget and Fiscal Review Subcommittee on Education -- is to lead the Senate's effort to transform and hold accountable our state's public education system.
It is for this reason that I have chosen to decline to run for Congress and to pursue my dream of becoming California 's next Superintendent of Public Instruction [...]
I endorse Senator Cedillo and look forward to working with him to continue the "change we can believe in" both in California and Washington in these troubling times.
And here's a bit from Cedillo's:
State senator Gilbert Cedillo (D-Los Angeles) today confirmed his intention to run for the 32nd congressional seat being vacated by Rep. Hilda Solis, the Obama administration choice for Secretary of Labor.
"This is a tremendous opportunity for Latinos and the working people of East Los Angeles and San Gabriel Valley. Hilda Solis has been a strong leader on labor and economic issues for the 32nd District. As a candidate I seek to continue that focus, creating a competitive workforce, securing access to affordable healthcare and investment into public safety and transportation," shared Cedillo.
This changes the calculus of this race a bit. Gloria Romero represented most of this district in the State Senate. Gil Cedillo actually does not. In fact, Judy Chu has represented maybe more of this area than Cedillo has. Chu has already grabbed the endorsements of local Assemblymen Kevin DeLeon and Ed Hernandez. And if more Hispanics join the field, that could certainly chip away at Cedillo's support among low-information voters. One of the Calderon brothers may still jump in. And Dante noted last week that Emanuel Pleitez may run.
This kind of makes this astroturf piece by Paul Hefner, playing down expectations that Chu could win in a divided race and playing up Romero's chances while disclosing midway through that he WORKS for Romero, look ridiculous in retrospect. (What's even funnier is the dueling astroturf comment in that piece from Judy Chu's former chief of staff.)
I would be careful with assuming that ethnic support is monolithic. The last special election we saw with an ethnic divide, in CA-37, was decided more because of strong labor support for Laura Richardson than identity politics, though it never stopped Richardson from trying to frame the entire race that way. Chu absolutely can garner support in Latino areas, as much as Cedillo can in Monterey Park. Labor's endorsement is going to mean a lot.
On the merits, I would say that Cedillo would certainly be a strong progressive with a particular interest in immigration policy, and Chu has a good background through the Board of Equalization on taxes and economics. Hopefully we'll have both of them on Calitics in the near future to discuss their candidacies.
(P.S. This HuffPo article about the new Progressive Change Campaign Committee suggests that they might play in CA-32. That ship has pretty much sailed, though if they got on board with Sen. Cedillo it may make some sense.
Last night at a holiday party for the West Los Angeles Democratic Club, state Board of Equalization Chair Dr. Judy Chu announced her intention to run for the Congressional seat vacated by Hilda Solis, who will become the Secretary of Labor in the Obama Administration. Before getting on the Board of Equalization, Chu served the 49th Assembly district, which is inside Solis' Congressional district and includes the heavily Asian Monterey Park, as well as El Monte and Rosemead. Her husband, Mike Eng, currently holds that seat (I guess that means Eng isn't running). Before that, Chu served on the Monterey Park City Council.
Chu and likely candidate Gloria Romero have faced each other before, in a primary for state Assembly in 1998. Romero won, but when she moved up to the State Senate in 2001 (replacing Solis) Chu took over the Assembly seat. I think the race may depend on who else is in the field. If Gil Cedillo or one of the Calderon brothers decide to run, Chu may have an advantage as the only Asian candidate among a field of Latinos. Also, a lot may depend on whether or not Solis endorses. Union support will also be critical.
Chu was an professor for 13 years, and in the Assembly she sat on the Transportation Committee and the Health Committee. Her ratings in the Assembly from the major interest groups were all top-rate. It should be a spirited race, and I hope to hear Chu's stands on key national issues.
Let's have a brief respite from the coming California apocalypse to try and figure out which politician will beat a fast retreat out of Sacramento and into DC to replace Hilda Solis in the Congress. There are actually some good progressive possibilities here, which one would hope considering that Solis was such a progressive leader. The CapAlert early line matched with my expectations.
Democratic state Sens. Gil Cedillo and Gloria Romero say they're exploring running for the East Los Angeles County congressional seat that's expected to be vacated by Rep. Hilda Solis, reportedly President-elect Barack Obama's pick for labor secretary.
While Cedillo was expressing his interest Thursday to reporters on the floor of the Senate, Romero wandered by and said she was "definitely" looking at jumping into the race.
Told that in addition to Cedillo, the Calderon brothers -- Assemblyman Charles and state Sen. Ron -- could be contenders, Romero declared, "I can beat them all" -- and walked off.
I like the confidence.
Both Cedillo or Romero would be great additions to the House. I would give Romero the edge because it's actually her district - Cedillo serves a contiguous district. Romero would be a rare voice for prison reform in Washington, and while her advocacy proved fruitless in Sacramento, ultimately she will be proven right if we see mass releases in the next few months, and having her on the national stage would be very helpful to the prison reform movement. For Cedillo it's the same, only on immigration reform. I would imagine that both of them would join the House Progressive Caucus.
As long as the Calderons stay out of this seat, I'd be happy.
Other contenders are the sitting Assemblymembers in the district, Ed Hernandez and Mike Eng, as well as state Board of Equalization chair Judy Chu, who in a twist is married to Mike Eng, which would make for an interesting primary. I think Chu is good in her position but I can't say I know much about her on other issues.
The last special Congressional election gave us Laura Richardson. Hopefully we'll do much better with this one.
UPDATE: As per below, Jackie Speier won the last special election for Congress in CA, actually.
California Senate Majority Leader Gloria Romero and celebrated labor leader and civil rights champion Dolores Huerta endorse Manuel Perez, Candidate for the 80th Assembly District.
"I feel honored beyond words", says Mr. Perez, "to have received this support from two of California's most distinguished leaders. Both Dolores Huerta and Senator Romero have worked hard for those who have been marginalized and underrepresented. I will attempt the same."
This is one of the few California state seats in play this year, and the demographics indicate it should be blue by now. Manuel Perez is an organizer, a healthcare provider, and a powerful progressive voice for this region. Good thing I listened to netroots nags and ran for state delegate, because now I'll have the honor of endorsing him this Thursday at our Pre-Endorsement meeting, and caucusing for him at the State Convention. For your people-powered politics fix, read more about Manuel Perez on the flip.
On Sunday, the LA Times reported the results of an investigation which revealed that the Department of Corrections has routinely miscalculated prison sentences, costing state taxpayers as much as $44 million dollars and clogging the worst prisons in the country, which has a cumulative effect.
Records obtained by The Times show that in August, the state sampled some inmate cases and discovered that in more than half -- 354 of 679 -- the offenders were set to remain in prison a combined 104 years too long. Fifty-nine of those prisoners, including (Nicholas) Shearin, had already overstayed and were subsequently released after serving a total of 20 years too many, an average of four months each [...]
The errors could cost the state $44 million through the end of this fiscal year if not corrected and more than $80 million through mid-2010. But California's overburdened prison agency waited more than two years to change its method of awarding credit for good behavior after three court rulings, one as early as May 2005, found it to be illegal.
Officials were giving some inmates 15% good behavior time instead of the 50% to which they were entitled. The state fixed release dates for only those inmates who requested it, according to a spokesman for the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, who said there was no evidence in Shearin's file that he complained.
In addition to having a flawed corrections system, it's just flat-out incompetent as well.
I believe that a fish rots from the head down, and this kind of inattention at the Department of Corrections can reasonably be seen as a direct result of a political leadership in Sacramento that is obsessed with being Tough On Crime (tm) and really doesn't want to see prisoners leave state jails. Aside from the fiscal issues, this is essentially taking away the fundamental rights of citizens of the state. As State Senator Gloria Romero notes:
State Sen. Gloria Romero (D-Los Angeles), who chairs the Senate's public safety committee, said inmates have a fundamental right to a timely release. She criticized the prison agency's "arrogance in the face of the law to simply say that these people's lives don't matter, but they can just lock them away and essentially throw away the key."
The more errors like this, the more inmates locked up for more periods of time. This causes overcrowding, which strains treatment and rehabilitation services and creates an environment where the inmates are in more control than the corrections officials. Suddenly nonviolent offenders are in a school for how to commit violent offenses rather than a means to turn around their life. And the recidivism rate soars, as those who actually get to leave prison are not equipped to do anything to go back.
This all feeds on itself. If we want to get serious about prisons, we'll do the work to reverse it.
There will be no sentencing and parole reform coming out of Sacramento this year. Do you know what that means? It means that this man will be in our state's corrections system for the next 12-20 years because military doctors addicted him to opiates.
Sargent Binkley is a high school classmate of ours and West Point graduate who is currently facing twenty-odd years in prison for robbing a Walgreens under California's minimum sentencing laws. He used a gun (unloaded) and robbed the drugstores of only Percocet - no money, harming nobody.
Here's the kicker -- he was addicted to the opiates after smashing his hip while serving abroad in the Army -- the military medical system kept misdiagnosing him, and feeding him more of the painkillers. Add in some serious PTSD (he guarded mass graves in Bosnia from desecration at one point) and he spiraled down.
Sargent turned himself in, has been in a rehab program in county jail for over a year and a half while he awaits sentencing, and by all accounts is doing well. The Santa Clara DA wants to chuck the book at him, and he'll be gone.
Because the leadership in Sacramento - Republicans and Democrats - have no sense of how to legitimately deal with the crisis in our jails, and would rather look like tough guys and gals while putting sick people in prison. Sargent Binkley is a sick man. He needs treatment and aid from a nation which has abandoned him. Because of our mandatory minimum sentencing law, an angry DA is going to make him spend the next 20 years in a crowded cell.
Sentencing reform is one of the many bills on the docket today, which looks to be the last day for the California Legislature, though that's subject to change. In my view this is the signature issue the legislature faces: will they step up and respond to an crisis, or will they cower in the face of having to be "tough on crime" and reject anything but building our way out of the prison problem. Frank Russo defines the terms here. Basically there are two bills, each of which has passed their respective chamber. SB 110 (by Sen. Gloria Romero) calls for an independent sentencing commission without restrictions on what sentences they can look at; AB 160 appears to restrict anything passed through the initiative process, which shields three strikes. Apparently there's a third bill in the mix:
• Both SB 110 (Romero), which failed on the Assembly floor 34 to 38 and which can be brought up under reconsideration, and AB 160 (Lieber), which had been holed up in the Senate Rules Committee and has been sprung to the Senate floor, can be voted on. If Romero's bill advances, there is a play with AB 1708 (Swanson) on the Senate floor that could amend SB 110, clean it up, and perhaps make it more acceptable to the Assembly. Both houses of the legislature have passed fairly similar sentencing commission bills, although with heated debates and opposition from Republicans.
Whether it's intra-legislative jealousy between the chambers or a desire to look tough to voters, if nothing moves on sentencing today, our representatives will have a lot to answer for. This is worth a phone call to your Assemblymember and Senator today.
The State Assembly rejected the only sensible reform that would do anything to deal with the root causes of a prison crisis that has been built by 30 years of progressively draconian sentencing laws. SB110 (Romero) would have created an independent sentencing commission with the ability to rewrite sentencing laws outside of a political culture obsessed with "tough on crime" poses. Everybody with even a modicum of understanding of the prison crisis knows that the overcrowding (at a time when crime is down) is a direct result of mandatory minimums and three strikes and the multitudes of nonviolent offenders serving long sentences in our jails, some as a result of the War on (some kinds of) Drugs.
Now, there is a bill, AB160 by Sally Lieber, voted out of the Assembly earlier this year, that is similar to the bill Sen. Romero authored. But, there are some substantive differences, otherwise how do you understand these quotes:
Romero likened the defeat of her bill to the Legislature's throwing up its hands and telling federal judges to take control of the troubled prison system.
Don Specter, an attorney with the inmate advocate group Prison Law Office, said the vote "certainly emphasizes the one-dimensional approach California has to crime, which is to build more prisons."
You can read the Romero bill and the Lieber bill, still pending in the State Senate (It passed the appropriate committee by a 9-7 vote). The Lieber bill can't touch sentences established through the initiative process (so this is probably about saving three strikes from scrutiny). The Romero bill would have made recommendations to amend those types of sentences. Overall the Romero bill is more comprehensive. This could be some kind of petty jealousy between the chambers.
Hopefully the Senate shows some leadership and passes the Lieber bill, which would at least move things in the right direction. Until then, on the flip I'm going to list those Democrats who would rather hang on to their little fiefdoms of "tough on crime" sentencing than enact the only proper reform to deal with a crisis that now will almost certainly be handled by the courts.
Let me build on Brian's post regarding the decision by two separate US District Court judges to convene three-judge panels to consider capping the California prison population. This should have been completely expected to everyone in the state government.
There is a near-term and a long-term crisis in our state prisons. So the Governor predictably offered a medium-term solution. Prisons don't build themselves overnight, so "adding 53,000 beds" which can only phase in over the course of a couple years does absolutely nothing to address the current situation. Furthermore, the continued overcrowding, which impacts rehabilitation and treatment and the high recidivism rate, means that by the time those new beds are constructed, the problem will be bigger, and any additional capacity (which doesn't even cover the CURRENT overcrowding numbers) will be only a temporary solution. So with root causes unaddressed, there was no way any judge with any sort of conscience could sit idly by and watch as the prison system continues to spiral out of control. A state government that has COMPLETELY FAILED TO LEAD forced his hand.
Grassroots progressives are picking up on my plea to call representatives to publicize what the party has voted to endorse and ensure that state and federal lawmakers will answer the call of their party and support these initiatives. The first resolution I mentioned was net neutrality; now we should push the resolution on sentencing reform, which I've included in the extended entry.
We know that our criminal justice system nationwide is perverse. For violent and nonviolent offenders alike, it has become a crucible which demands MORE violence as a means to survive.
This is what our system of justice does: It takes the unlawful and makes them more violent. It takes criminals and makes them worse, reducing their future options, encouraging them to become more physically brutal, cultivating their marginalization from society. Such is the irony of the politics of crime in this country. We are so afraid of violent criminals that we force our politicians to continually worsen their punishment, condemning them to prisons that have been shown to make inmates more violent.
This is especially true in California, home to the highest recidivism rate in the nation, because all of the overcrowding has for all practical purposes eliminated any treatment or rehabilitation programs and turned the jails into human waste dumps. This is not something we can build our way out from under; it's too far gone. Only some meaningful reform that silences the "tough on crime" crowd and revisits the role of incarceration as an opportunity for redemption and a return to civil society will fix this crisis. AB 900, which enabled the Governor to add 53,000 beds in exchange for token accountability, is already causing concern that even that accountability will be circumvented. Enough. The Governor's plan is overly cautious and seeks to kick the can down the road. We need real reform.
Schwarzenegger's prison managers have begun to implement a program to assess each inmate and give him or her an individual program to follow while in prison. They have also begun a comprehensive re-evaluation of every rehabilitation program to determine which work and which should be abandoned.
But the biggest reductions in overcrowding would come from changes in sentencing laws and parole policies. On those issues, Schwarzenegger must lead the way.
California has the highest recidivism rate in the country, with 70 percent of inmates returning to prison within three years after release. What the state has been doing for a generation is not working. The current policies are draining the treasury and making the streets less safe. It's time to try a new approach.
State Sen. Gloria Romero, a.k.a. the only one in Sacramento who gets the prison problem, is really sticking her neck out to deny the rapacious fearmongers more sentencing laws, and she deserves our support.
Republicans are outraged that more than two dozen bills in the Legislature that would create new crimes or lengthen sentences will languish until next year in a committee controlled by Democrats.
Sen. Gloria Romero, who chairs the Senate Public Safety Committee, imposed a one-year moratorium earlier this year on all Senate and Assembly bills that would worsen crowding in California's prisons and jails.
That's what you do when there's a CRISIS. And considering that there have been nearly 1,000 laws in the past 30 years raising sentences for criminal offenders, I would guess that every additional law is completely unnecessary. Of course, that's the bread and butter for those so wedded to the "Tough on Crime" label. So Republicans are miffed:
But Sen. Dave Cogdill, vice chairman of the committee, maintains the panel "shouldn't be holding the safety of the people of California hostage to this situation."
The Modesto Republican concedes prison crowding "is very real, but the reality is any bill that we take action on this year wouldn't become law until January 2008."
Right, because new prison facilities can be conjured in a matter of months. Who's the architect, Merlin?
I don't think it's any secret that there's been a growing disquiet from progressives with how the California Legislature is doing business. We won't know the final tallies until the end of the session in September, of course, but just in the past couple months, Democratic leaders have given the Governor the ability to build 53,000 new beds for prisons without addressing rehabilitation programs that are the only way to cut costs and reduce recidivism. They approved a shockingly anti-worker set of tribal gaming compacts, with only token protections in the side deals, and then tried to make the dishonest claim that they didn't negotitate the deals in the first place so they can't be blamed for them (um, then don't approve them and force the Governor to start over, you have the power to do that, you know). They combined their healthcare bills to negotiate with the governor without them even including guaranteed issue, meaning that insurance companies can continue to deny coverage to patients for pre-existing conditions (a separate state-run system would be set up to provide for these ill patients, which would make insurers even more loath to spend money on care, given the crutch afforded them by the parallel system for sick people). And they allowed hostile amendments on patient-dumping to pass the Assembly Health Committee. We don't yet have a state budget, as it passed its deadline, and progressives are crossing their fingers that this trend won't continue and some of the worst cuts for the needy preferred by the Governor won't be allowed to remain.
So what is going on here? Why is a Legislature with wide majorities in both houses, sufficient to pass pretty much everything but the budget and tax measures, seemingly caving in on all sides? One article in the SF Chronicle offers a compelling explanation:
Thanks to Frank Russo for informing us that Sheila Kuehl's SB 840, the single-payer health care plan which is the the result of years of work and refining, has passed the California State Senate for the second straight year. The mostly party-line vote was 22-14, with only Lou Correa voting with the Republicans against the bill.
Speaker Nunez and President Pro Tem Perata have health care bills up for votes, likely tomorrow, that are expected to pass. Then the other chamber gets a crack at them all, then there will be some process of negotiation and merging of all of these health care-related bills resulting in whatever the Governor and the Legislative leaders decide is an acceptable final product. It's great that, by virtue of continuing to push SB 840 and not backing down, Sen. Kuehl will be in that room for those negotiations. So this is not a fool's errand, it's a vital step to continue to push this state toward universal single payer healthcare and show the nation that it can be done.
The State Legislature decided to run away from hard choices and add brick and mortar to simply delay our prison crisis without addressing root causes.
Legislative leaders brokered a deal Wednesday to add 53,000 beds to the state's prison and jail systems while increasing rehabilitation opportunities for inmates with added drug treatment, vocational and education programs.
The $7.4 billion agreement to help ease California's severe prison overcrowding contained no provisions for any early releases of inmates.
At the same time, it did not include any changes to the state's parole or sentencing systems. And it drew heavy criticism from the prison system's two largest public employee unions over a provision that would allow the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to transfer 8,000 inmates out of state in a program now on hold in the appellate courts.
The transferring 8,000 inmates part won't get through the courts. And holding firm on sentencing and parole is lunacy, absolute lunacy. It just means that we'll all be back here in 5 years. Meanwhile construction money will be doled out and more nonviolent offenders will be locked up. And the "increasing rehabilitation opportunities"? Lip service.
Busloads of protesters fighting the construction of new penitentiaries swarmed the Capitol on Wednesday, while inside the statehouse, the simmering politics surrounding the prison overcrowding crisis boiled into full view.
The protesters attacked Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's plan to build 78,000 new prison and jail beds, saying that $11 billion worth of "bricks and mortar and debt" are no substitute for true reform.
Instead, the demonstrators - some dressed in orange prison jumpsuits and standing in makeshift cells - said lawmakers could quickly thin the inmate population by releasing geriatric and incapacitated convicts and by sanctioning thousands of parole violators in their communities rather than in state lockups.
I would add revising sentencing guidelines through a newly-created independent commission, but just the presence of these protesters at all suggests that this issue will not be as invisible as it has been in previous years. Which makes sense, as we're two months from a court-imposed deadline to do something about overcrowding.
I have been talking about sentencing reform for a long time now, and until recently it was a dirty word in Sacramento. That has seemingly changed, as Schwarzenegger has seemingly accepted that there must be some sentencing reform. However, his plan for a sentencing comission was to create a panel that would recommend good public policy, and then the elected officials would ignore it. Not so the Dems:
Democrats in the state Senate filled in the blanks Wednesday on their version of a sentencing commission by proposing a panel with the power to set prison terms that could be amended only by a two-thirds vote of the Legislature.
The Senate Democrats' take on a sentencing commission differs markedly from the one offered by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in his 2007-08 budget. Rather than adjusting the length of terms, the Republican governor's commission would only make recommendations on sentencing policy and devote its first year of research to the state's much-criticized parole system. (SacBee 3/15/07)
But don't worry, Todd Spitzer is still holding it down for letting elected officials rule sentencing rather than a panel that would take into account actual public policy concerns.
"There's not one Republican, and I would be surprised if there were many Democrats who are not soft on crime who would vote for that bill," Spitzer said.
So, let's get this straight, 17 states that have these comissions? Soft on crime? Federal judges who are about to open the doors of our decrepit and overstuffed state prisons? Soft on Crime. That's all they can say, "Soft On Crime." They have no real solutions to the questions involved in the prison crisis, so they just get up on their "Tough On Crime" high horse and galavant around town. What has "Tough on Crime" given us? Overstuffed prisons, a ballooning prison budget, and a 70% recidivism rate. Oh, and we will soon approach 1% of all Californians in prison.
Tough on Crime is a ridiculous notion, and it's time to start challenging Spitzer and the other hooligans on the right to actually explain themselves. Just saying Tough on Crime isn't enough.
as her immediate successor to the 24th State Senate district. This must have been something of a surprise to Assemblymember Kevin De León, whose chief of staff was in the room and running the DSCC elections. De León is termed out in 2012, but surely he was hoping to be promoted to the upper chamber and would have considered running for the 24th District seat in 2010.