20 | April | 2006

Gov. Schwarzenegger appointed a new acting secretary of the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, two months after appointing the previous acting secretary.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Thursday named James Tilton as acting secretary of the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, replacing Jeanne Woodford.

Tilton, a former budget expert at the department, currently works as a program budget manager, focusing on the corrections budget, in Schwarzenegger’s Department of Finance.
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Before naming Tilton, Schwarzenegger on Thursday confirmed that Woodford had stepped down.
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Rod Hickman, the governor’s first corrections secretary abruptly resigned in February.(SacBee 4/20/06)

This is a mess, and once again, Arnold has failed to provide the leadership necessary to correct the situation. He is content to stand on the sidelines and criticize:

The Republican governor said the prison system is “in kind of a disastrous situation” and has been “for a long time.” Fixing the prison system, Schwarzenegger said, is a “slow process.”

“Kind of”…uh, yeah. It’s kind of in a bad situation. A federal judge is about to take over the entire ($1Billion) state prison healthcare system. The system is about to collapse due to the exploding three strikes population. Yet all the governor can do is state the obvious and say it’s hard?

How about rolling up your sleeves and getting to work on that disaster? Take responsibility for seeing that the situation is resolved. But the Governor has failed to accept any of the challenges and has failed to provide the leadership that we need in Sacramento to get a workable prison system.

Why can the governor not challenge his own party? The criminilization of our youth has got to stop. We serve nobody by locking up large chunks of our young adult male populations. We need to rework 3 strikes, we need to rework sentencing, and improve treatment and rehabilitation programs so that we can clear out the prison system. We need to get these prisoners back to a situation that they can contribute to our state.

So, Arnold, instead of pushing this merry-go-round around and around, why can’t you consider stopping this and working for a stable, permanent solution.

A little digression on the flip…

And a digression:
Hey…just a question…why can the state provide healthcare for inmates and not law-abiding citizens? Oh yeah, b/c the state has to under the constitution. When we have to, we can. Health care needs to be that pressing of an issue. The state needs health care for the masses, no matter how we do it.

Today’s California Blog Roundup is on the flip. Teasers: No cash for levees, Bush visits, Arnold photo-ops, clean money, minimum wage, education, public health, Rovism resurfaces, Paid-For Pombo, outside influence in CA-11, CA-50.

P.S. Yr. Humble Editor will be unavailable for several days; the Blog Roundup will return on Monday.

Pot-Pourri is at the top today

California will get no federal help for the levees in Sacramento. Big shock. Not that the levees are likely to fail, or anything.

AB 583, the California legislature’s clean money bill, is up for a hearing in the Senate Elections committee today. We’ll keep an eye out.

on pretty much every aspect of the indexing of the minimum wage to inflation: political, moral, exponential.Shame on us.

Dunner’s Stunners has some thoughts on the Sheila Kuhl bill on including GLBT individuals in public school history courses.

Take that, free market fundamentalists!

The Mad Professah notices that HIV+ diagnoses are now to be reported to the state by name, no longer by unique (but anonymous) identifier.

Governor-ish

Bush’s California schedule: looks like it will be dissent-free.

Unless of course, Governor Schwarzenegger has a complaint about California’s status as net donor state, particularly with respect to the recent “sorry, but no” from the feds on levee funding.

ABC points us to the Chron’s reporting of a Schwarzenegger campaign listing of media mentions, identified as “attacks” and “opportunities”. ABC mentions that media mentions aren’t usually characterized quite that aggressively. For me, this is just more proof that they’ve imported the Rovian campaign strategy to the Schwarzenegger campaign, one part of which is viewing the press as just another special interest to be bullied or bought, as the situation demands.

Looks like Phil Angelides will have some help (uncoordinated, of course) from some friends.

Paid-For Pombo / CA-11

Progressive 11th has a quick and pithy summary of the current state of fundraising in CA-11.

In that vein, Say No To Pombo has an interesting excerpt from the April 15 FEC filings: looks like the DCCC picked sides in the CA-11 primary, despite saying they wouldn’t.

More Paid-For Pombo flip-flops (or flat-out lies) about his H.R. 4437 position.

PomboWatch notices that Paid-For Pombo doesn’t seem to be inclined to actually discuss his positions in front of his constituents.

CA-50
Apparently, the Republicans in CA-50 may have an interesting choice for the June 6 primary: Eric Roach, who is acceptable to California Republicans, but well to the right in the national party, or Brian Bilbray, who is well to the right of the national center, but not still not extreme enough for the California Republicans.

calitics

Daily Archives: April 20, 2006

The Merry-Go-Round that’s Not so merry

California Blog Roundup, 4/19/06

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