Free Republic

SACRAMENTO (AP) - State senators assailed a revised state prison guard contract as fatally flawed and said it would set a precedent preventing lawmakers from refusing to fund the pact in the future. Sen. Dede Alpert, D-San Diego, chairwoman of the special committee overseeing the contract, said Monday she couldn't support a fatally flawed deal that would steal power from lawmakers. She said lawmakers had already made terrible mistakes tying guard raises to pay hikes at the California Highway Patrol. "The Legislature bears much of the responsibility and has to accept that responsibility," she said in concluding the meeting. "But...

SACRAMENTO (AP) - The new contract between the Schwarzenegger administration and the prison guards' union and the invasion of the West Nile virus are on legislative agendas this week. So is the state budget - still. The state's new fiscal year reaches its 26th day Monday, but partisan disputes over local government funding, contracting out of school jobs and labor code lawsuits have prevented passage of a new state budget. The delay is preventing some legislators from attending the Democratic convention this week in Boston. Here's what else is going on this week at the capital: BALLOT BATTLE: The 3rd...

SACRAMENTO - As governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger quickly learned to use his office's bully pulpit to get his way. But last month, as he sought $300 million in concessions from the state's prison guards, the governor's megaphone mysteriously went silent. Lawmakers and others who follow corrections issues suggest that Schwarzenegger may have believed he was on the verge of securing an overall budget deal and was focused on quickly putting the prison piece of the puzzle into place. He saw it merely as another budget issue, not in the context of trimming the power of the guards union or reforming prisons....

A federal judge threatened to put the state's prison system into receivership after warning that a prison guard contract renegotiated by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger harms reform efforts in the nation's largest state correctional system. The California Correctional Peace Officers Association, the guard's union, already has a pattern of interfering with investigations and employee discipline, U.S. District Judge Thelton E. Henderson wrote Monday in a letter received Tuesday by Schwarzenegger. Schwarzenegger's proposal would worsen problems by granting even more concessions to the union in return for postponing pay increases, despite numerous warnings from a federal court special master, witnesses at Senate...

The best that can be said of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's proposed deal on the prison guard contract is that it's better than having your eye poked out with a stick. This wasn't a true renegotiation, where the two sides exchange views and compromise on provisions of the 300-page contract. Like Schwarzenegger's other "deals" this legislative session, it was merely a deferral of costs to a later date. What a disappointment. A chance for true reform was dashed. Schwarzenegger's deal does nothing to close the gap between what legislators were told the five-year contract would cost ($567 million) and what it...

SACRAMENTO - California's 31,000 prison guards could be asked to defer raises over the next two years to help the state balance its budget, but would eventually receive a full pay increase under a deal being fine-tuned by state and union negotiators, legislative sources briefed on the deal said Tuesday. New details emerged from contentious talks at the prison guard union's West Sacramento headquarters as Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger confirmed Mercury News reports that the state is close to a deal with the influential group. Although the proposal would save the state less than a third of what Schwarzenegger had sought,...