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PolitickerCA Partners
August 13, 2008 - 10:55am
News
Top Democrat, Republican oppose court order for prison money
By Ben van der Meer, PolitickerCA.com Senior ReporterA possible court order to seize $8 billion for prison health care construction costs in California got negative responses from Republicans and Democrats Wednesday.
State Assembly Republican Leader Mike Villines (R-Clovis) said the move amounted to an end-around on normal state budgeting, while Controller John Chiang, a Democrat, said doing so would violate his office's ability to operate legally.
Federally appointed prison receiver J. Clark Kelso announced Wednesday morning at his Sacramento office that he would seek a court order for the money, totaling $8 billion over the next five years.
Doing so would bring the state up to where it should be in prison health care funding, Kelso said. If a court complied with the request, the money could be appropriated without the consent of either the governor or the state legislature.
Villines said in a statement that Kelso's move would be the wrong way to go about business.
"Republicans believe that any decision to spend $8 billion should be made by the Legislature, and we will fight hard to protect taxpayers," Villines said in the statement. "Lawmakers were elected to make decisions about how the people's hard-earned tax dollars should be spent."
Villines added that legislators tried to work with Kelso on funding for prison health care, but he walked away from the deal.
Chiang said he supported Kelso's efforts, but also worried about how he went about it.
"I continue to believe the Legislature should approve lease revenue bonds as the fiscally appropriate way to fund prison bed construction and avoid interfering with my ability to responsibly manage the State's cash flow and provide the services our State expects and deserves," Chiang said in a release.
Kelso's move could also throw a wrench into efforts to pass a new state budget, now more than six weeks overdue.
Many believe a deal, if not formal approval of a budget for 2008-09, could be in the offing, but a deficit of more than $15 billion must be closed to do so.
Syndicate
Legislators allowed 77 deadly violations of Judges' Orders
They had ample time to correct the system and to release prisoners before it reached this level of humanitarian crisis. Villines is one who blocked reform for years and played a big role in bringing it all to this juncture. A prisoner is dying everyday, the one per week that is a preventable death is only an estimate. More than 400 prisoners who didn't have a death sentence die each year. Nobody knows how many die shortly after being released from prison of chronic diseases that were neglected.
Villines knows that the legislature is a group of people who were mostly elected to do the bidding of law enforcement labor unions. They are happy to expand the prison industry since that is what finances the legislature and the people he represents - law enforcement labor unions. No reform will ever happen at the legislative level.
People are dying. These hospitals have been needed since Reagan took away the funding and cast the mentally ill to the streets, endangering us all. The hospitals should be built outside the authority of CDCr, outside the authority of the legislature but they definitely should be built.
Villines should be recalled for blocking reforms for years that resulted in this reign of death.
Somebody better factor in the lawsuits - more are coming.
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