Jerry Brown signed all but one of the budget bills a while ago, but he’s been hanging on to the prison realignment bill for a while.  There were a bunch of reasons of this, but Brown’s team never got around to saying any of them.  Well, he went ahead and signed it:

Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown signed a bill late Monday that aims to make a key part of his budget proposal a reality — AB109, which authorizes the transfer of thousands of state prisoners to local jails (and also shifts various other criminal justice functions away from the state and down to the county level).

One problem: Brown planned to fund the measure with tax increases and extensions — you know, the ones vehemently opposed by Republicans. The governor had hoped to put those taxes before voters in June, but threw in the towel last week after being stymied by that GOP opposition.(SF Chronicle)

So, yeah, the biggest reason for the delay would be that the state hasn’t made any provisions to fund this transfer.  But, no matter how the deal goes down, it is tough to imagine that Brown can balance the budget without this component.  And I can’t imagine the legislature, even if it is just the Democrats, would really want to vote on this measure for a second time.  So, Brown went ahead and signed it.

Ultimately, what this says to me is that Brown hasn’t given up on this realignment/tax extensions plan.  He has a few months before the taxes expire, and as of yet, we’re still waiting for signature gatherers on the streets.  If the Governor is aiming for a November election, the time line is getting rather short to go the way of the initiative.  Not desperate yet, but we would expect to see something soon.