Category Archives: Arnold Schwarzenegger

Arnold Schwarzenegger, Prisons

A Step Towards A Resolution in Prison Capacity/Healthcare Case

Yesterday, lawyers for inmates signed on to the Schwarzenegger Plan B for the prisoner release.  If you’ll recall, Arnold and Krew originally brought a [plan to the court to release just 27,000 prisoners, short of the target 40-44,000. The Court rejected that first plan and Arnold had to bring a new plan, leading us to this point.

Lawyers for California’s sick inmates said Monday they like the Schwarzenegger administration’s plan for reducing the prison population and urged a three-judge federal panel to let state officials decide what methods to use.

The plan calls for a reduction in the population of 33 adult prisons to 137.5 percent of design capacity within two years, thus meeting the requirement of the panel’s Aug. 4 order.

“Rather than ordering the state to utilize particular population reduction methods, the court should leave to the state the discretion and flexibility to choose which methods it uses to accomplish the reduction,” the inmates’ attorneys said in their response to the plan.(SacBee)

The fact that the inmates’ attorneys signed off on this plan saves a lot of drama, but not all that much in actual litigation. The Administration still plans on appealing this decision even if their Plan B is approved, as they want to go back to Plan A. The decision would need to go to the 9th Circuit, and if necessary, to the Supreme Court.

What is clear, however, is that we simply can’t build our way out of the prison crisis. We need to find ways to reduce recidivism by putting back the “Rehabilitation” in CA Dept. of Corrections and Rehabilitation in more than name.

Arnold Schwarzenegger

Governor Schwarzenegger and First Lady Shriver induct Harvey Milk into California Hall of Fame

They say history is written by the victors. Well, tonight we should all feel victorious as Harvey Milk is inducted into the California Hall of Fame.

I am thrilled to be going, not to watch history being made, but to watch a history finally start to be written that includes LGBT people, their lives, their stories and their achievements.

Harvey’s nephew Stuart Milk will attend the ceremony on behalf of his uncle, along with family members of Mayor George Moscone, Assemblymember Tom Ammiano and Senator Mark Leno. The Hall of Fame exhibit at the California Museum will be toured by scores of California students who will finally get in touch with a key piece of LGBT history. Also, one of the winners of this year’s California Dreamers Challenge, a scholarship for high school students, will be announced tonight who is a gay youth who was inspired by Harvey Milk.

EQCA worked hard to pass a bill in 2009 creating Harvey Milk Day in California to commemorate Milk’s legacy across California and in our schools, but we still need you to help make it happen. Leading up to the first official Harvey Milk Day on May 22, 2010, EQCA plans to work with local groups and educators to develop educational materials and plan appropriate commemorative events across the state (May 21 and 22 in San Francisco, May 22 in Los Angeles and May 23 in Palm Springs). Every child should grow up knowing they are valuable.

Watch out for our organizing kit, prepare to attend one of our events across the state, and start talking to people you know about why Milk’s legacy matters.

Last Friday was the 31st anniversary of Milk’s assassination, so I feel it especially poignant that Harvey should be so honored today. This has indeed been a remarkable year for Harvey.

Last month we honored Stuart Milk at our San Diego Equality Awards for his work around the world spreading Harvey’s message of hope, the hit film Milk won two Oscars, Harvey was posthumously awarded the Presidential of Freedom by President Obama, and the Governor signed the legislation authored by Sen. Mark Leno and sponsored by EQCA officially establishing Harvey Milk Day in our state.

California has always led the way forward, which is why it was so important for our state to take a stand and honor an LGBT hero with a day of special significance. Equality California pushed hard for this legislation, using all the tools at our disposal to make the case. I’d like to thank the nearly 40,000 EQCA members who sent emails to the Governor urging him to sign, the thousands who made phone calls or Tweeted, and the countless others who spread the word to their friends and family. This couldn’t have happened without your dedicated action!

I’d also like to thank our state legislature who passed Harvey Milk Day and 14 other pro-LGBT bills this year and Governor Schwarzenegger for signing into law the first official day ever recognizing an openly LGBT figure. EQCA knows from experience that supporting equality is a winning strategy for elected officials.

This victory is significant because it’s a message to future generations. This is when we stop erasing LGBT people and their achievements from the history books. Thanks to the support and advocacy of EQCA members California has among the most comprehensive protections for students and youth in the world. The anti-LGBT industry would like to take it all away. After all, LGBT minors make easy targets, and schools are the best places to go after them. They have no choice but to be there.

We need to be there for our community’s youth, which is why we need Harvey Milk Day, Safe Schools legislation, anti-bullying and nondiscrimination protections, and comprehensive curriculums which teach the value of all students, as well as the cost of violence.

In anti-marriage ballot campaigns across the country we’ve seen the other side exploit fears about their children becoming gay in order to trick voters into taking our rights away. We need to stand up and make it absolutely clear that there’s nothing wrong with children learning about LGBT people in school.

Alice Kessler is the Government Affairs Director for Equality California. www.eqca.org.  

Arnold Schwarzenegger, Budget

Arnold, Pay Your Taxes

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Our Governor is always talking about the lack of money coming into the state. Perhaps there would be more if he would pay his taxes:

According to documents filed in L.A. County Superior Court, Arnold Schwarzenegger owes the IRS $39,047 from 2004 and $40,016 from 2005. In total the Guv owes $79,064.00 … and as we all know, he’s definitely not saving the money for rainy day traffic violations.

An official at the L.A. County Recorder’s Office tells TMZ their system shows the lien is still active.(TMZ)

As the governor of the largest state in the union, Arnold has a committment to lead by example. Perhaps this is why he’s furloughing the Franchise Tax Board tax collectors.

You can grab the PDF of the lien form here.

Arnold Schwarzenegger, Budget

Some Seriously Messed Up Framing

The AP has a story about the fact that Arnold’s Prop 49 is breaking a hole in the budget.  Arnold, for his part, is pretty adamant that he won’t gut it. Because, you know, it’s part of his legacy. I guess it’s only okay to mess up Darrell Steinberg’s legacy by repealing the mental health measure.

The problem here is still one of framing.  Solutions now seem to be completely limited to cuts, those who support additional revenue appear to have completely lost:

With California facing another mammoth budget deficit, the state’s nonpartisan legislative analyst says voters should reconsider some of the billions of dollars tied up in ballot measures they have approved in recent years.

Among the suggestions from Legislative Analyst Mac Taylor is an after-school measure that costs $550 million a year and helped launch Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s political career. It is one of many programs contributing to the “autopilot spending” that the Republican governor and fiscal watchdogs often complain about because the plans were approved by voters without specific funding sources. (AP 11/20/09

The seriously messed up part of this: nobody can envision the world both Steinberg’s Prop 63, the millionaire’s tax for mental health, and Schwarzenegger’s Prop 49 could a) both live in harmony and b) have stable revenue sources.

Both mental health and after school programs are important, but so is K12 and higher education, so is IHSS, and so is infrastructure.  We must always balance one interest against another, but it has gotten to the point that we are starving our primary goals. We are cannibalizing programs that should exist to feed other programs that should exist.

We are only punishing ourselves. We must find new sources of revenue.

Arnold Schwarzenegger

Hey Mike Genest, I Wouldn’t Want to Be There Either

Mike Genest, the Governor’s departing Finance Director (and fellow Goldman School Alum!), has brought a lot of tumult to the administration with his departure. Intentionally or not, the change has kicked off some other changes around the Horseshoe.

As Gov. Schwarznegger prepares for his final year in office, he has begun a major reshuffling of his senior staff. Meanwhile, the administration is trying to cobble together a pro-active agenda that will not be overwhelmed by a $20 billion deficit.

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He will also seek to institutionalize the role of inspector general, which he created earlier this year. Up until now, IG Laura Chick has been focused on overseeing the implementation of federal stimulus funds. But Schwarzenegger spokesman Aaron McLear said the administration will seek legislation next year to expand the scope of the job and make it permanent.

While the governor mulls his plans for 2010, some new players have come aboard. This week, Scott Reid was tapped as the governor’s sixth Cabinet Secretary, replacing Victoria Bradshaw, who held the job for 14 months. Bradshaw will return to her old job as secretary of the Labor and Workforce Development agency. Former Cabinet Secretary Fred Aguiar will return as a deputy chief of staff.  (Capitol Weekly)

I’m not sure who would voluntarily hop on that sinking ship. At this point, Arnold is persona non grata to Dems, Republicans, and even most DTS voters.  His base seems to be adolescent boys, too bad for him, they don’t vote.

Laura Chick is an interesting case here though. Chick had, and still has, a level of respect her time as LA Controller.  Unfortunately, she’s more of a political type than an actual auditor type. While I don’t mean to dismiss those with a History bachelor’s or a master’s degree in social work, it’s not exactly the education you would script for somebody who is supposed to spend the entirety of their time looking after the state’s money. That is not to say that she won’t do an excellent job, as I’m sure she will hire outstanding staff.  But, perhaps one of these days, we’ll hire Inspector Generals not for their past political experience, but for the fact that they are damn good at looking after money.

Of course, there’s always got to be a little drama, and Genest has already made sure there’s a little of that. But with the upcoming budget battles, the real drama will take place over some spreadsheets and the lives of a few million Californians.

Arnold Schwarzenegger

Arnold is Done with Politics?

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I’ll believe it when I see it, but Arnold said today that he’s done with elective politics:

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger won’t say what his plans are when his term expires next year, but he won’t be running for another office.

”I have never labeled myself as a politician, so I am not going to run for anything else,” Schwarzenegger told reporters in Milan on Tuesday.  (NY Times 11/18/09)

To say Arnold Schwarzenegger was a one-off would be quite the understatement. There will never be another leader with quite that mix of showmanship and bravado, brinksmanship and wrong-headedness, inconsistency and doggedness. You never quite grasp where you are going with Arnold Schwarzenegger, and this is entirely intentional.

But don’t worry, Meg Whitman will spend $150 Million to prove that she’s Arnold 2.0, way better than the first incarnation of a rich Republican come to save us from ourselves.

Arnold Schwarzenegger

Who’s Got Ideas for Governor Steinberg?

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With the LG spot vacant now, and Arnold Schwarzenegger making a trip to the Middle East, including a stop to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, State Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg is acting Governor.  So, I’d thought I would go ahead and list a few ideas that he might want to try on for size.  So, here we go:

  1. Officially rename the Horseshoe the Hall of Muscles.
  2. Appoint Tom Ammiano to be the next Lt. Governor.
  3. Run T-3: Rise of the Machines on a continual loop in the window with the Latino Water Coalition.

Got any other ideas?

Arnold Schwarzenegger, Budget, Prisons

The Counties and the Prison plan

I was going to include this in the other prison diary, but it got a bit bogged down. But this is a key point for the counties: The county prisons are also overcrowded.

In fact, Asm. Mike Davis brought a bill that passed the Assembly before getting bogged down in the Senate, AB 1369, that would have allowed additional flexibility for county jails.

AB 1369 would allow the Sheriff, upon approval by the Board of Supervisors of that County, to place on electronic home monitoring those inmates sentenced to low level felonies, if found eligible under current law. The bill would also impose a penalty for the escape or attempted escape of someone who is placed on involuntary home electronic monitoring. Under current law, there is a punishment for the escape or attempted escape of someone on voluntary home electronic monitoring, which is an oversight.  

“Based on the lack of space in the county jail system, a Federal Court has placed a mandatory cap on the number of inmates in the system. To adhere to the cap, the Sheriff’s department has reduced the percentage of time served by inmates committed to county facilities,” said Assemblyman Mike Davis (D-Los Angeles), author of AB 1369. (Davis Press release)

So, in other words, we’re shifting the problem from the state prisons, which admittedly have quite the doozy of a disaster on their hands, to the county jails, which only have a major headache.  But, adding these additional prisoners to the county systems should level out the problems, I suppose.  We’ll have equally messed up prison systems at the county and state level.  

Another point on this is that may not be so apparent from the judges’ perspective, but will be noticeable to the counties: budget impacts.  The counties will now be responsible for housing a lot more prisoners under the plan. Even with the state paying back a portion of the raid on local government funds, the counties are struggling to provide the services they are mandated to do already, adding on some additional prisoners will hardly be welcome news for those Board of Supervisor Budget Committee meetings

Arnold Schwarzenegger, Budget, Prisons

Revised Prison Plan Goes to Federal Court

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Last we heard from the prison situation, the three judge panel had told the state to do better than their plan to reduce the population by 27,000.  Yesterday, the administration presented a plan to release the 40,000+ that the court had ordered, including some methods that the Legislature has previously rejected.

The Schwarzenegger administration bowed to a federal court order Thursday and submitted a plan to reduce California’s prison population by more than 40,000 in two years, largely by sending fewer people to prison for relatively minor crimes and parole violations.

Corrections Secretary Matthew Cate complied with the Thursday deadline set by a three-judge panel in San Francisco, while insisting that the court had no authority to order the population-reduction plan or to issue additional decrees necessary to make it work. The state has already served notice of an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The plan includes several of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s proposals that the Legislature has already rejected: allowing some elderly or ailing prisoners to finish their sentences in local custody or home confinement; sending criminals to county jail instead of prison for crimes such as drug possession, receiving stolen property and writing bad checks; and raising the threshold for felony grand theft from $400 to $950.(SF Chronicle 11/13/09)

In theory, the Legislature has to approve some of these measures.  Depending on how the bill is presented, it could only need a majority. Which is good, because it seems highly unlikely that any Republicans would actually vote for raising the threshold for grand theft or reducing punishments on drug crimes as the plan calls for.

And right on cue, Jim Nielsen talks tough:

Plans to send fewer people to prison, such as the change in the threshold for grand theft, are “an egregious compromise of justice,” said Assemblyman Jim Nielsen, R-Gerber (Tehama County). He said the state needs to build more prisons. (SF Chronicle)

Of course, we could build and build and build, but unless we address the underlying cause of the problem, the revolving door of recidivism, we aren’t going to build our way out of the problem. Ignoring the fact that we don’t have the money to build the prisons, the fact that warehousing a substantial portion of the poor male demographic doesn’t create less criminality is the problem. Sen. Mark Leno points out solutions that are actually, you know, solutions, such as revising sentencing guidelines.

While it always kind of shocks me to write this, California needs to look to states like Kansas to find ways to reform our prison system. We need to change the focus of our prisons from simple punishment and warehousing into a broad focus on rehabilitation and getting these people back into productive society.  If we give up on these people, it is only the state that stands to lose as we pay $40,000 per yer to house each of these inmates.

Arnold Schwarzenegger, Budget

I’ll Be Baaacck: Deficit Edition

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Know how we’ve kind of moved on from the myriad budget crises? Well, it’s not moved on, and it’s out for blood…

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger estimated Monday that California’s budget will fall out of balance by $5 billion to $7 billion this fiscal year, on top of a $7.4 billion gap already projected for 2010-11.

If true, state leaders would confront at least a $12.4 billion to $14.4 billion problem when Schwarzenegger releases his budget in January. California currently has an $84.6 billion general fund budget. (SacBee 11/10/09)

Seeing as nothing has changed on the Republican side on taxes, and bonds are not all that likely either, this will likely mean more cuts. So, who will it be this time? Total elimination of IHSS? Cutting money for firefighting services?

Round and round the legislators minds go, where they will stop nobody knows.  But certainly everybody will be trying to lay low as the axe comes calling.

It shouldn’t be this way.