The Special Master in the federal court case regarding the prisons will be looking into the relationship between the CCPOA and the Schwarzenegger administration:

Special Master John Hagar reiterated his view that the governor had abandoned reforms to appease the guards. He also said he intended to force the aide, Cabinet Secretary Fred Aguiar, and Chief of Staff Susan Kennedy to testify as part of his probe of the union’s influence in the prison system.

In extraordinarily blunt remarks, Hagar said Kennedy appeared to be “in the pocket” of the union, had traded favors with the group and had allowed its leaders unusual access to the governor’s office.

And he lamented that politics interfered with the efforts of two reform-minded chiefs of the state corrections department, who resigned in quick succession earlier this year.

“People have quit because they felt their ethics were compromised,” Hagar said. “There are significant problems…. The place is crumbling.”
***
Critics say the plan, which would increase the number of inmate beds by more than 40,000 by 2011, relies too heavily on prison building and should instead aim to decrease California’s 70% recidivism rate, the nation’s highest.

The crisis has quickly become a campaign topic, with Schwarzenegger’s Democratic challenger, State Treasurer Phil Angelides, holding two events last week to promote his own prison reform plan. (LA Times 7/13/06)

So, what role is the union playing? And are they obstructing the real reform that could help a) reduce recidivism and b) reduce the overall general prison population.  It takes no genius to understand that more prions = more prison guards = a more powerful union.  Now, I’m all for unions and collective bargaining, but in the context of the prisons, growth is bad.  We need to ensure that these conflicting interests don’t encourage the wrong motives.

In 2003, Arnold Schwarzenegger said this to Sean Hannity:

I think gay marriage should be between a man and a woman.

Looking past the obvious inanity of the statement, you see a deeper discomfort with gay relations.  It’s a bit odd considering that he worked in Hollywood for so long, where gays are always present (perhaps not openly though). Well, at some point Schwarzenegger is going to have to take a hard position on gay relationships; one that isn’t fuzzy and relying on the courts or other decision makers.  The Court of Appeal case brought the subject to Dan Walters’ column, which we’ll go into on the flip.

Follow me to the flip for more details on the demographics and a couple of comparisons and why we need a better gay rights infrastructure.

It may be uncertain how the appellate court will rule, but it’s very certain that the issue is headed to the state Supreme Court for a decision that will draw national attention. From a legal-political standpoint, Monday’s arguments could not have been timed more exquisitely, coming just days after the highest courts in New York and Georgia upheld bans on same-sex marriages and amid the duel between Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and his Democratic challenger, state Treasurer Phil Angelides.

Schwarzenegger vetoed a gay marriage bill last year, declaring that the issue was already before the courts and “this bill simply adds confusion to a constitutional issue.” Angelides, meanwhile, has declared support for same-sex marriage rights, saying Friday in San Francisco: “I’d sign the gay marriage bill, because I’d hope that every child would have the opportunity to grow up in a loving family.”

Politically, the issue is a mixed bag in California. While polls consistently show that gay marriage support falls well below 50 percent among voters nationally, support has been growing in California.

Twenty years ago, California voters opposed same-sex marriage by a more than 2-1 ratio, according to the Field Poll, but the gap has narrowed steadily. Proposition 22 passed handily in 2000, with 61.4 percent of the vote, but most recently, both Field and the polling conducted by the Public Policy Institute of California have indicated that only about 50 percent of voters oppose gay marriage, with support just a few percentage points lower.

No matter how they fare in the courts, gay-rights advocates appear to be winning the duel of public opinion. (SacBee 7/11/06)

The Demographics

Field released a poll in March (PDF) that went over various trends in how the general California public views gay rights issues.  Here’s a small sampling:

In 1997 45% of adults described homosexual relations as always wrong and 38% said they were not wrong at all. In the current survey, the proportion saying such relations are always wrong has declined to 32%, while those who feel they are not wrong at all has grown to 43%.

Many residents say their own opinions about homosexual relations between adults has become more accepting over time. Greater than four in ten (41%) say they are now more accepting of such relations than they were when they were 18 years old, while just 8% are now less accepting. Another 46% say their views have not changed.(Field Poll 3/06)

And a table from the Field Poll has more details about the Marriage Question:

The writing is on the wall, and this time Dan Walters saw it.  Good Job, Danny Boy! The momentum built by a planned and strategic movement will ultimately bear fruit in the electoral process.

I was having a conversation about the shift from more radical activism (i.e. loud marches, riots) as compared to the type of work that the HRC does.  I think there’s a place for both, but I must admit that I was on the side of seeing the whole thing as a PR war rather than a war of liberation. But, why is it that after big setbacks, we rarely see major gay rights protests, even in San Francisco? The French burn cars in the streets simply because businesses are allowed to fire people, here not even a Vespa was burned in NYC in rebellion against the New York court decision against gay marriage.

One thing we discussed was a comparison between gay rights activists and immigration activists.  Immigration activists are more keen to go to the streets than gays? Why? Perhaps we could look at financial interests first.  Gay men especially are a particularly affluent group.  The lack of children to pay for combined with the possibility of strong multi-earner families makes many gay, couples at least, more comfortable with their situation and less likely to fight for rights.  Immigrants are almost without exception from the lower class and have more to fight for.  Their very existence in the country is at stake in the immigration, for the LGBT community, it’s less concrete.  Sure, marriage is a good thing, but many people wouldn’t even take the state up on it if they offered.

But, it’s not necessarily bad that we don’t take to the streets…if we use our market power to strengthen our position.  If we are to fight a war, I’d rather do it with a Madison Ave. adman and a few million dollars than a burning Chevy Nova and a barricade on Castro St. We must make far better use of our economic strength to leverage it into political clout. 

A Comparison to other Minorities

If you look at other minorities who did well converting economic strength into political clout in the past, two good examples are Jews and Cubans.  The Cubans, however, have more than just economics on their side; they have a high concentration in one state (FL) that happens to have a large say in national politics.  What other reason would there to keep up our failed Cuban policy of isolationism. The evidence of the failure of sanctions was clearly visible many moons ago.  Our allies no longer even have any sanctions against the “communist” island nation.  But we continue to drift along with a failed policy because one group, Cuban exiles has pecuniary interest and a personal grudge against Fidel Castro.  However, we do not have the luxury of living in a large concentration like the Cubans do, and many of us live in solidly “blue” states.

So, the next obvious group to look to is the Jewish voting bloc.  First, before I continue with this, I’d like to disclose that I am a gay Jew, so much of this is something that I’ve mulled over for a while and is somewhat personal.  I mean no offense to any groups.  The current list of Jewish Congressmen  includes 11 Senators (11% of the Senate) and about 25 House members. (Note that the House page wasn’t completely updated and that John Kerry’s father was Jewish, but he was raised Catholic so he was not included.)  However you look at it, Jews are far overrepresented in politics considering the Jewish percentage in the population overall is less than 2%. 

So how did Jews accrue such power?  Well, hard work, ambition and lots of money.  American Jewry tends to skew towards the upper incomes.  Additionally, we have a strong desire to help the community by providing leadership to make sure that another Holocaust can never happen and that the U.S. remains the strongest friend to Israel in the world.  I grant that this is a bit on the simplistic side, but go with me here.

Lack of leadership:

The gay leadership is far less developed.  We have minimal leadership in Congress: 2 Democrats and a Republican, and the Republican, Jim Kolbe of Arizona, is about to retire.  Now that is not to say that there aren’t other closeted gay Congressman (such as David Dreier), but the closeted ones tend to be the most anti-gay as they feel the need to run away from their lies.  Our main lobbying organization, HRC, is in disarray.  They endorse “moderate” Republicans who end up voting for GOP leadership and then voting to confirm anti-gay judges.  This is simply not acceptable.  The GOP has chosen to seek a position on gay rights that panders to bigots and hate mongerers.  The HRC argues that we must have friends on both sides of the aisle.  I say that’s find when we have true friends on both sides of the aisle.  A simple vote here and there is not sufficient when they participate in votes which are very deleterious to the LGBT community.

Our money

Current estimates of gay purchasing power have pegged the figure at about $641 billion.  Projections have that figure growing to $1 trillion by 2012.  The current figure of $641 billion exceeds the GDP of all but the top 18 nations.  It’s roughly the same size of Australia’s GDP.  Australia’s entire economy!  Gays could just buy Australia!  And what a fabulous island/continent that would be.  But be that as it may, our $640 billion of purchasing power hasn’t yet transformed into real political power.  We are still the ball that the GOP, and occasionally Democrats, feel free to kick around. 

Brian’s sidebar on Gay Earning Power
UPDATE: Well it turns out that I was a little unclear.  I didn’t mean to imply that gays earn more than straight earners. The income differences are negligible (note that this is a bit old…1994):

Gender     Men   Women
L/G/B  $28,432  $22,397
Straight  $28,207  $18,805

Well, at least negligible for men.  It turns out that lesbians are generally better educated than straight women.  By accounting for education, age and some other factors into consideration, this report says that gays actually earn less:

In this case, after taking differences in education, age, and other factors into account, behaviorally gay/bisexual men earned 11% to 27% less than similar heterosexual men. Behaviorally lesbian/ bisexual women earned 5% to 14% less than similar heterosexual women, but the fairly small sample of lesbians in the group means that we might see this result just by chance. (In other words, a sample of this size might show an income difference this large even if there were no salary differences in the population.) (National Organization of Gay and Lesbian Scientists and Technical Professionals, Inc. 1994)

However, for my point, I don’t think we should account for age and education.  The fact that gays are better educated is part of my point.  Don’t take that to mean that I don’t think parts of the LGBT community are not disadvantaged.  In fact, transgendered have a 70% unemployment rate in San Francisco, making them especially vulnerable to prostitution.  But the fact remains that we are not generally a disadvantaged community.

We have yet to truly harness the power of all of this money.  Part of this is that it’s easy to see a married couple in FEC reports, not so easy for gay couples.  This is where the HRC is supposed to benefit us, but has failed us.  The HRC’s costs are too high (They bought a pretty darn fancy building up in DC!) and they are ignored far too often.  Organization on the state level is typically woefully inadequate.

But beyond the organization of our money, we just don’t leverage it well.  First of all, there isn’t a clear understanding in the gay community how important it is to give money to political campaigns.  And when we do give, we aren’t clear about our needs.  This has to change.  I’m certainly not advocating becoming a single issue voter, but understand that there is nobody else to do your work for you.  We all must push our legislators as hard as possible to ensure that they all understand the importance of gay rights issues.

But, ultimately, the polling and the demographics will lead the way.  But we need to work behind and in front of the cameras to ensure that it happens as rapidly as possible.  Currently, that is not happening, and it shows in the current administration’s policies.  Gay marriage will happen sooner rather than later in California, assuming Congress doesn’t do something stupid like cutting off the issue with a Constitutional Amendment.  But leaders like Mark Leno and others are working to make it happen sooner, not just by working for the Civil Marriage Act here in California, but by working to form a stronger infrastructure for the gay rights movement.

And so, if you ask me where our efforts are best spent, a riot or building a stronger political infrastructure, I suppose you can count me in the latter camp.  Don’t get me wrong, Stonewall had its place.  Stonewall is our statement and provides a legacy to build upon.  But now is the time to build a truly strong movement.

John Doolittle, the soon to be ex-congressman and future lobbyist from Roseville, has accepted a debate challenge from Democratic challenger Charlie Brown:

Charles Brown, the Democratic nominee for the seat held by Rep. John Doolittle, R-Roseville, has proposed debates with the nine-term conservative incumbent, and Doolittle told him Tuesday that he is itching for the opportunity.
***
Doolittle accused Brown of supporting increased taxes, gay marriage and amnesty for illegal immigrants. He also said that while he has been busy fighting to “protect the values and traditions that have made this country strong,” Brown is a member of the American Civil Liberties Union “that has attacked veterans, religious organizations, our Pledge of Allegiance and even the Boy Scouts.”
***
“I hope that we can take Congressman Doolittle at his word and that he will commit to a series of five open and honest debates on the serious issues facing our country,” Brown said in a statement. “I am disappointed in his divisive response. Our federal government is the biggest it’s ever been, the largest debt in our nation’s history, corruption runs rampant in Washington, D.C., and our children are at war. It is time for our leaders to solve problems — not play politics.” (SacBee 7/12/06)

Doolittle of course takes the opportunity to attack Brown…for being an ACLU member?  Didn’t he ever watch “The American President”?

For the record, yes, I am a card carrying member of the ACLU, but the more important question is “Why aren’t you, Bob?” Now this is an organization whose sole purpose is to defend the Bill of Rights, so it naturally begs the question, why would a senator, his party’s most powerful spokesman and a candidate for President, choose to reject upholding the constitution? Now if you can answer that question, folks, then you’re smarter than I am, because I didn’t understand it until a few hours ago. (“The American President” 1995)

In a time of increasing domestic spying and government intrusion into our lives, the ACLU is what Doolittle chooses to attack?  The ACLU stands up to the President when he wants to look into everybody’s life.  The ACLU is doing work that John Doolittle and the Congress should have done to expose these egregious assumptions of power.  The ACLU is protecting the American people and the American values in a way that apparently John Doolittle doesn’t understand.  And while he’s busy talking about the ACLU in public, he and Julie are raking in the cash from illicit schemes to keep open Indian casinos in Iowa.  Doolittle talks about Brown being “out of step” with the constituents, but it is clearly Doolittle and his corrupt GOP allies that are really “out of step.”

Joan Petersilia, a woman who I mentioned in this diary about the Chronicle’s editorial on 3 Strikes reform, has lashed out at Arnold Schwarzenegger’s misguided prison reform.  She feels, like many other prison experts, that simply building more prisons will never be sufficient to control California’s prison population.

Joan Petersilia, a nationally recognized authority on prison reform and a consultant to the state corrections department, described the plan for a wave of prison expansion that the governor released on Friday — just as his reelection campaign gears up — as unworkable, poorly thought out and out of touch with research that she and others have done in recent years on cost-efficient rehabilitation methods.

“I think anybody who understands the situation we’re in has got to be mystified by this report,” said Petersilia, who runs a state-funded institute on prison reform at UC Irvine. “It’s looking backward, not forward.”
***
Petersilia ridiculed the idea, in large part because, she said, it would probably not be possible to build the prisons fast enough to keep up with what is expected to be continuous growth in the inmate population. Prisons are at nearly double their capacity.

“The plan, to me, is a fantasy,” she said.

Another penal expert, Barry Krisberg, president of the National Council on Crime and Delinquency, in Oakland, said that over the previous several decades the state has expanded prison capacity 300 percent — but at the same time the inmate population increased 800 percent.

The focus should be on treating and rehabilitating inmates so they stay out of prison, he said, rather than incarcerating them over and over. Other experts agreed.

“Pick any study done by any criminal justice expert in the last 20 years, and they will talk about sentencing reform, or parole reform,” said Dan MacAllair, executive director of the Center for Juvenile and Criminal Justice. “This doesn’t address any of that.”  (SF Chronicle 7/11/06)

Sentencing reform must be the central element of any prison reform plan.  So far, talk of this Big Taboo has been scarce.  However, it now appears that the Chronicle is on board for the conversation.  One hopes (the one being me) that the Chronicle’s recent pursuit of the real story of the prisons will make sentencing reform a real issue. 

And Schwarzenegger then has to come back with, “well, yeah, I got some sentencing reform in my plan.”  Here’s his big vision on the subject:

“I can understand where some people are coming from — when you look at the numbers, it looks like we’re just building beds,” said Jim Tilton. “But there are parts of this that represent real change.”

Tilton said proposals to shift female inmates into community-based facilities and open other programs designed to provide job-training and other services to inmates about to be paroled were based on successful reforms other states had implemented.

That’s it? Moving around a few women (who are a small minority of prionsers) and a few job-training programs?  That’s what Arnold comes up with?  We need a massive restructuring of how we lock people up, why we lock people up, and what we do with them once we lock them up. Arnold’s plan does none of that.  It nibbles at the corners by bringing a few good ideas in, but ignores the central concept of sentencing and parole reform. We just can’t keep locking up millions of people.  It’s just not tenable.

There is a whole slew of news coming in regarding John Doolittle.  It’s been, shall we say, a very, very bad news cycle for the Doolittles.  First, the one that’s getting most of the attention is  from the WaPo, and it’s a doozy: (H/t to Kos)

In the past two years, campaign and political action committees controlled by Rep. John T. Doolittle (R-Calif.) paid ever-larger commissions to his wife’s one-person company and spent tens of thousands of dollars on gifts at stores such as Saks Fifth Avenue and Tiffany & Co. and a Ritz-Carlton day spa.

The use of such committees, especially “leadership” PACs, for purposes other than electing politicians to Congress is a common and growing phenomenon, but campaign finance watchdogs say Doolittle has taken it to new heights.

Doolittle’s wife, Julie, a professional fundraiser, has collected 15 percent of all contributions to Doolittle’s leadership PAC and additional commissions on contributions to his campaign committee — a total of nearly $140,000 since 2003, according to Federal Election Commission records.(WaPo 7/11/06)

Follow me to the flip for more on the Corrupt Spouses Doolittle.

So, not only have the Doolittles been fond of giving her a cut of his political donations, but they claim, by virtue of her getting a cut of all of the Leadership PAC’s donations, that Julie Doolittle raised ALL of the PAC’s donations.  ALL:

Still, campaign finance experts and congressional watchdogs deem highly unusual Doolittle’s efforts, particularly the arrangement with his wife. Doolittle spokeswoman Laura Blackann said in an e-mail that Julie Doolittle receives her 15 percent commission only on money she is “directly involved in raising.”

That would mean Julie Doolittle has raised every dollar that has gone to the Superior California Fund since 2003, according to FEC reports compiled by the watchdog group Taxpayers for Common Sense. During the 2004 campaign cycle, Sierra Dominion received payments from the leadership PAC of $68,630, exactly 15 percent of the $457,533 the PAC raised. So far in this campaign cycle, Sierra Dominion has taken in $69,896, again exactly 15 percent of the $465,973 raised.

Yet Doolittle’s leadership PAC lists payments for fundraising consultations not connected to Sierra Dominion — one to Brian Jensen, a Doolittle staff member at the time of the payment, and another to a firm called Enburg Consulting of Washington, which received $3,000 in March.

Doolittle aides said Julie Doolittle was entitled to 15 percent of all money the PAC brought in because those donations were raised at events she helped organize. All told, Julie Doolittle’s firm — run out of the couple’s home in Oakton with no phone listing or Web site and no other known employee — has received commissions totaling $169,146 since its founding in March 2001, according to FEC records and Taxpayers for Common Sense. (WaPo 7/11/06)

Oh, and another big user of the Leadership PAC slush funds?  Yeah, you guessed it, Richard Pombo, Doolittle’s brother in corruption.  Pombo’s Leadership PAC, the oh-so well named RichPAC, which has had its share of scandals as well.

But that’s not all of Julie’s problems coming down the pike today.  No-sir-ee, Julie’s got some good ol’ fashioned Abramoff dirt heading her way.  It seems Tony Rudy, is being SUPER co-operative with prosecutors.

Tony Rudy, the former senior aide to ex-Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Texas) who went on to become a well-heeled K Street lobbyist before pleading guilty to conspiracy, will avoid sentencing for at least three more months as he continues to cooperate with the government’s investigation of Jack Abramoff’s influence-peddling network.

Rudy’s Nixon Peabody legal team and lawyers from the Justice Department’s Public Integrity Section filed a joint motion last week asking Judge Ellen Segal Huvelle to hold off on sentencing Rudy, who faces a maximum of five years in prison for his March plea to one count of mail and wire fraud. Huvelle agreed late Thursday to postpone a status conference in the case — scheduled for this morning — until Oct. 2 “in order to allow Mr. Rudy’s cooperation to continue uninterrupted,” as the joint motion states. (The Hill 7/11/06)

What does all that have to do with Julie Doolittle?  Well, plenty.  TPM Muckraker reported last week that payments were made to Julie Doolittle even after her supposed fund-raiser for the Capital Athletic Foundation was cancelled, and just days before two-shoes John Doolittle wrote a letter to the Dept. of Interior indicating that he was very keen to see an Indian casino in Iowa re-opened.

Let’s zoom back to July of 2003, when Julie Doolittle suddenly appears on the payroll again. Why then? She hadn’t received any payments from Abramoff for four months.

The timing happens to nearly coincide with a favor. Two weeks earlier, Doolittle had written a letter to Interior Secretary Gale Norton on behalf of an Abramoff client, the Sac & Fox in Iowa. For some reason, Doolittle, a California Republican and an anti-gambling Mormon, took a vital interest in this Iowan tribe’s casino. It had been shuttered by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and Doolittle wanted it reopened.

Oh, and a couple months later, in October, while his wife was still on Abramoff’s payroll, Doolittle again went to bat for one of Abramoff’s clients, this one in Massachusetts. Doolittle’s former staffer Kevin Ring, who worked for Abramoff and was his liaison with Doolittle, worked on both of these accounts.

And in the meantime, Doolittle was periodically hosting events at Signatures, which apparently only cost him about $100 a pop.(TPM Muckraker 7/3/06)

At this point, it looks like Rudy might end up being a witness in the Doolittle felony corruption case.  At this point, all the Feds have to do is tie a few loose ends, and they will have bagged themselves another member of the Corrupt California Republican Congressional Delegation.

Arnold Schwarzenegger, our Dear Leader, has made the “no new taxes” pledge. 

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger declared Thursday he will not raise taxes if re-elected as governor, establishing a fundamental contrast in his November race against Democrat Phil Angelides, who wants to boost taxes on the state’s highest earners and corporations to balance the budget.

In an hourlong interview with The Bee editorial board, Schwarzenegger did not promise to balance the budget but said he would “chip away” at the state’s structural spending gap by controlling costs and expanding California’s economy.

He said new taxes are not an option.

“I totally rule it out,” Schwarzenegger said. “I will not raise taxes.”(SacBee 7/7/06)

We all know that worked really, really well for George H.W. Bush.  That pledge, which is now heavily pushed by Grover Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform, is eating into the American Dream.  It debilitates our governance and soils our nation’s honor.  It allows us to spend, but not pay for it.  It has brought our federal government to the brink of financial ruin.

Fortunately, California has a balanced budget requirement, which we have gotten around by using bonds in the past.  Thus, we now have this structural budget deficit without the long-term capability to a) increase services as the people of California desire or b) pay off that structural deficit.  Arnold plans to “chip away” at it, but how does he plan to fund health care for all children, better schools, more access to preschools, better after school programs (his own Prop 49).

The answer of course, is that Grover and his ilk don’t care.  They would love to see a state go bankrupt, in a similar fashion to Orange County.  Grover has said as much, that he would like a state to slide into bankruptcy to be a bad example for other states.  If any state would make a powerful exempary case, surely California would.

Arnold claims to be a moderate, but surely a moderate could see both sides of an issue and wouldn’t make broad blanket statements that bind his hands like: “I totally rule it out…I will not raise taxes.”  He is no moderate.  Moderates understand that sometimes painful decisions must be made for the betterment of the state.  Arnold does not, and that is why we need a new governor.

I’ve been on a real tirade over the prisons lately, mostly because that’s where the really interest analysis has been recently.  (This will be my 4th diary on sentencing reform, the others can be found here in the prisons subject) The SF Chronicle had an editorial today that I somehow missed, so thanks to Tom Hilton.  It’s great:

California’s prison system is a mess: overcrowded and poorly managed, with staffing shortages, abysmal health care, grossly inadequate rehabilitation, job training and drug treatment — and insufficient supervision of parolees. The result, not surprisingly, is a nation-high recidivism rate of 70 percent.

This failed system is a burden on taxpayers, a threat to public safety and an affront to the notion that a civilized society should be doing more than warehousing people in primitive conditions. Those problems do deserve to be treated with the sense of urgency being expressed by Schwarzenegger and Angelides.

However, a state that is struggling to cope with 175,000 inmates needs leaders with the courage to ask a most fundamental question: Do all of those inmates really need to be there at an annual cost of $30,000 each?

One out of four inmates is serving an extended stay under the voter-approved “three strikes” law of 1994, which brings a 25-years-to-life sentence when an ex-convict with two prior convictions of serious or violent felonies commits a third felony of any type.
***
Angelides and Schwarzenegger are right about the need to address the immediate crises within our prisons. But the long-term solution must include a restoration of sanity to our sentencing laws by requiring that 25-to-life “third strikes” be serious or violent offenses.

California cannot build its way out of this prisons crisis. Sentencing reform must be part of the equation. It will take bold and informed leadership to make it happen. (SF Chronicle 7/7/06)

The prisons are overcrowded because we have too many prisons.  The Big Taboo of Sentencing refrom must not be taboo for much longer.  It’s an idea that not only should get traction.  It MUST get traction. 

Now, as I’ve said it’s not the only issue: the relationship between the union and management must be resolved. (But note that I don’t think it’s the only or central issue as others do.  Bill Bradley doesn’t think 3 strikes is much of a problem at all, as displayed by his sophomoric and trollish comments on my 3 strikes diary.)

We’ve ceded the moral authority to the right on these issues for too long, and it’s now obvious that they have no more clue what to do about it than we do.  In fact, their ideas are actually harming the state.  We have more prisons now, we spend more money now, yet does it result in lesser crime than say rehabilitation programs?  The answer is an emphatic now.  As I’ve said before, it costs over $16,000 to prevent a violent crime using 3 strikes, but less than $4,000 to prevent a violent crime with prevention and rehabiliation programs.  So, we get the same result for less than a quarter of the price.  Or, if  you want to spend lots of money on it, which isn’t necessarily a bad idea, we get a far greater reduction of crime using preventive programs.  And as a bonus, we get a boost to our economy from additional productive citizens.  Wouldn’t it be better to have these people working towards a better economy alongside us rather than locking them all up and giving them no chance for the future?

We need to get over this lock them up first mentality.  It will not make us safer and it will cost us billions of dollars (beyond the billions it already cost us).  The Big Taboo needs to be honestly discussed, and sooner is better than later.

Phil Angelides announced that he would drastically overhaul the prison system immediately upon being sworn in office. 

Phil Angelides, the Democratic candidate for governor, issued a harsh condemnation of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger for the crisis in the state prison system and offered his own expensive plan for expanding the prisons and improving rehabilitation programs.

In a brief stop at the airport in Burbank, Angelides indicated that the prisons were now one of his highest policy priorities, along with education. He charged that the vastly overcrowded prisons were undergoing a “meltdown,” that a major prison riot was a “legitimate worry,” and that his first act as governor, if elected, would be to declare a state of emergency in the corrections system.
***
“The governor has put us in a deep hole” because of his inattention to the prison crisis, Angelides asserted. “We are going to have to make the resources available” to provide systemwide fixes. (SF Chronicle 7/7/06)

But while Phhil has endorsed some great ideas, such as increasing funding for youth prevention services, The Big Taboo is ignored:

Joan Petersilia, a prison expert and professor at UC Irvine, said that it was disappointing that neither Angelides nor Schwarzenegger were focusing on what she said was the most important issue in reducing the overpopulation — parole reform.

She said that there are probably 20,000 nonviolent offenders in prison at any one time just for technical parole violations and that these people should be diverted to treatment or rehabilitation programs instead.

“The truth is, it’s only words if you can’t reduce the population, and you can’t get the population down until you get some of the nonviolent offenders, the parole violators, out,” Petersilia said.

We need real structural reform in the prison system.  Look, there are many, many problems with the prison system.  There’s the constant battles between the union and management, there are the health care problems for which the special receiver might raid the general fund, and there’s the overcrowding issue, just to name a few.  But, overcrowding is really the underlining cause of all of these issues.  We just have too  many people in our prisons.  Ms. Petersilia has proposed some changes which would drastically reduce our prison population without seriously jeopardizing our security.  Both candidates would be wise to review sentencing and parole reform, not for the sake of politics, but because it’s good policy.