It was Christmas in August for Democratic legislators Tuesday as a trio of federal judges gave them the gift of political cover.
The order to cut California’s prison population by more than 40,000 over the next two years – and the short, 45-day window to come up with a plan – will ease of pressure on Democrats facing some ugly political choices later this month.
There wasn’t a Democrat in the Assembly or state Senate who was looking forward to coming back to Sacramento to face a raucous debate on Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s plan for slashing the prison budget through a combination of early releases and sentencing changes.
Taking 27,000 inmates out of the prisons – and releasing many of them back into their communities – was guaranteed to bring out the loud chants of “soft on crime” from conservatives, local police chiefs and plenty of everyday voters.
But Tuesday’s ruling that even deeper reductions were needed to protect inmates’ rights to proper healthcare gives Democrats a ready-made argument for supporting the prison cuts: “The Feds made us do it.”
You could almost feel the relief in the statement put out by Sacramento’s Senate President pro Tem Darrell Steinberg.
“The case for reform can not be any clearer,’’ he said. “We will return in August to produce reform that saves money, protects public safety and takes back the control of our prison system.’’
Democrats tried unsuccessfully to slip the early release plan through the Legislature in the blizzard of bills that were passed in the all-night session last month that finally closed the state’s $24 billion budget gap.
But legislative Republicans, who had agreed to the prison cut bill without seeing the final language, cried foul when they saw it included the early release plan they thought they had killed.
When the GOP leaders threatened to torpedo the entire budget agreement over what they described as a “double-cross,” Schwarzenegger and the Democrats agreed to pass a bill that slashed $1.2 billion from prison budget, the cuts, but debate the specifics in August, when legislators return from their summer recess.
That was wonderful news for Republicans, who could look forward to a full-blown debate over the prison cuts, with their members loudly voting against any early release effort while arguing – now and during next year’s election campaigns – that any Democrats who favored that plan were putting the public in desperate danger.
The Democrats can pass the prison cuts without any GOP support, but a debate that forced Democrats to defend the early release of convicted felons would be a political victory for Republicans, regardless of the final result.
Of course, many of Schwarzenegger’s proposals – early release for aging inmates, more earned time credits, diversion, not prison, for low-risk parole violators – came directly from the June 2004 report of a commission on prison overcrowding chaired by former Republican Gov. Deukmejian, who no one has ever accused of being soft on crime.
The fact that the state’s prison population has risen from around 20,000 in the mid-1970s to 154,561 at the end of last year and is grabbing a huge chunk of California shrinking budget also argues for change.
But no politician, Republican or Democrat, is going to let reasoned arguments get in the way of a partisan “gotcha” that could swing some elections.
The decision is “a nightmare come true for California families,’’ said Sam Blakeslee of San Luis Obispo, the GOP leader in the Assembly, echoing the arguments that Republicans will use in the upcoming debate over the governor’s prison cut plan.
But Republicans will have to watch as Democrats shrug their shoulders in resignation and argue they now have no other responsible choice but to vote to cut the prison population.
Schwarzenegger has spent plenty of time attacking efforts by the federal court to force California to spend billions to upgrade prison healthcare. He is expected to appeal Tuesday’s ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court.
But those public acts don’t mean that the governor isn’t also breathing a sigh of relief now that it has become that much easier to get the prison reductions he wants.
John Wildermuth is a longtime writer on California politics.