But instead of taking a muted approach in response — or attempting to work out some reforms behind the scenes — the California Correctional Peace Officers Association is gearing up for war, admitting nothing and saying the improprieties were on the part of investigators, not guards.

This is from Associated Press:

Inspector General Robert Barton said the California Correctional Peace Officers Association advised members not to cooperate and filed a lawsuit and collective bargaining grievance in a bid to hinder the investigation.

 

The union sent a letter last month to Gov. Jerry Brown and every state lawmaker in what Barton called “the latest strong-arm tactic” to obstruct the investigation and discredit the inspector general before the report was released.

 

Union President Chuck Alexander’s letter to Brown accuses Barton of taking a prosecutorial “burn a cop a week” approach to overseeing the corrections department. Union spokeswoman Nichol Gomez-Pryde said the union’s only interest is in protecting its members’ legal rights.

 

The report came more than a decade after the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation tried to stamp out a culture in which prison guards protect one another when they witness wrongdoing.

CCPOA’s hardball tactics reminiscent of Gray Davis era

The stance taken by the CCPOA was remindful of its tactics and attitude during Gray Davis’ nearly five-year run as governor. The prison guards union won a 2002 contract that not only provided big raises — 37 percent over five years for many union members — it also gave union officials a say in management. At a remarkable July 2003 Sacramento hearing, lawmakers heard testimony about how this made it difficult to prevent, much less punish, outrageous guard behavior similar to what’s being alleged at the High Desert prison. The San Francisco Chronicle reported at the time:

On Thursday, eight witnesses shared their versions of a controversy that began at the California Institution for Men in Chino (San Bernardino County) on May 9, 2002. In an alleged incident that included as many as 20 guards, some participating and some watching, five prisoners whose hands and feet were bound were slammed to the ground, beaten and kicked.

 

Internal affairs agents for the corrections system launched a criminal investigation, according to Special Agent Richard Feaster. A recording of an informant provided especially damning evidence, agents said Thursday. … But the probe quickly ran into trouble.

 

Using a clause in their contract with the state, the California Correctional Peace Officers Association began demanding that agents share the evidence being amassed against guards. Agents were concerned that the case would be compromised if union officials learned who key witnesses were.

 

The contract the CCPOA signed with Davis …  includes many … provisions, including allowing guards to obtain information being collected against them.

Schwarzenegger demanded, won concessions

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who succeeded Davis in the fall 2003 recall, fought the CCPOA tooth and nail and won back some of the concessions that Davis had made. This led the union to consider mounting a recall attempt against Schwarzenegger in 2007, but it eventually gave up.

In 2010, the CCPOA endorsed Jerry Brown for governor and was rewarded with a 2011 contract that prompted complaints from a Long Beach Press-Telegram editorial:

Brown’s deal reverses some reforms that were made under Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, such as the requirement that guards meet physical fitness standards and that allows managers to take action against sick time abuse. To top it off, the deal includes a pay increase.

The recent state inspector general’s report came shortly after Jeffrey Beard announced he was resigning Jan. 1 as secretary of the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. The former Pennsylvania prison official was brought in by Brown three years ago to shake up a dysfunctional culture, and he got high marks from the governor.

But Beard’s departure won’t be tidy, coming against a backdrop of the ugly fight playing out at the High Desert prison. Brown — like Davis, his former chief of staff — and his next prison boss will have to figure out how to treat a union that resists boundaries on its behavior.

By John Hrabe

California Democrats kicked off their annual state party convention on Friday night with dinners, parties and hospitality suites to celebrate last November’s historic victories. Riding President Obama’s coattails, California Democrats added six freshmen to the state’s congressional delegation and temporarily gained the first supermajority of both houses of the state legislature in more than a century.

The party that prides itself on egalitarian values was largely split during Friday night festivities.

Sacramento Young and College Democrats noshed on Chandos Tacos and Southern BBQ at the Sacramento Masonic Temple, courtesy of the Consumer Attorneys of California and Assembly member Roger Dickinson, D-Sacramento.

Meanwhile, just a few blocks down J Street, the California Democratic Party’s top brass thanked the party’s elite donors at the VIP Chairman’s Reception and Dinner at the Citizen Hotel. CalWatchdog.com confirmed that the hotel only uses union labor.

The Party of the People dined on a gourmet meal, pictured at right, of succulent steak, sumptuous salad and intoxicating wine. Given that most of the sponsors of the shindig were public-employee unions (see list above), that meant the taxpayers of California ultimately funded the lucullan feast.

The Democrats chowed down as the taxpayers who footed the bill were at home agonizing over filling out complex state tax forms in preparation for the April 15 Tax Day of Reckoning.

Unbleeping Burton

A soft-spoken party Chairman John Burton, whom the San Francisco Chronicle once dubbed the “human Gatling gun of bleepable lingo,” told campaign contributors that their dollars would be put to good use in the upcoming special elections for vacancies in the state Legislature.

“Because we’re successful, we’re able to thank you for helping us,” Burton said in his brief and expletive-free remarks. “We hope to be able to repeat our successes in the next election cycle. Everything you’ve done here will be put to good use.”

The convention’s largest financial contributors were given top-billing at the VIP reception. The four-star Convention chairs included the California Correctional Peace Officers Association, the California Statewide Law Enforcement Association, the California Teachers Association, the Cooperative of American Physicians and the United Food and Commercial Workers Western States Council.

Burton also didn’t hide his desire to be somewhere else. “If any one of you can beat me out the door, no chance,” he said as donors sipped wine, dined on surf and turf and enjoyed the seventh floor nighttime view of the Capitol.

Party favorites

One legislator that didn’t follow Burton’s advice to rush out the door was Assemblyman Ian Calderon, D-Whittier. Considered one of the party’s most promising up-and-coming legislators, Calderon showed how to aggressively work a room, glad-handing guests at each table, before reaching the exits.

State Senator Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, who spent spring break watching oral arguments at the US Supreme Court in the state’s Proposition 8 gay marriage case, was the clear star of the Friday evening cocktail reception. Adoring activists and donors repeatedly stopped him for a photo op.

Other notable Democrats spotted at the VIP reception and dinner were several state legislators, party executive director Shawnda Westly and Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones.

A snap shot of the reception at the VIP Citizen Hotel is at right.

And a YouTube of Burton’s remarks is below.

The following first appeared in City Journal California.

FEB. 2, 2012

By STEVEN GREENHUT

California’s ongoing budgetary and political dysfunction has spawned a host of reformers backed by wealthy donors. The latest scheme, released with much fanfare in late November, is a report produced by the Think Long Committee for California and funded by billionaire Nicolas Berggruen. It’s called “A Blueprint to Renew California,” and it leaves much to be desired.

Most of Think Long’s proposals—the creation of a “citizens’ accountability committee,” additional spending on infrastructure and education, streamlining the environmental-permitting process—are window dressing for the main one: a $10 billion tax increase, imposed through a ballot initiative that would go before voters in 2012. And then, after it gets voters to sign off on the tax hike, the committee (like many in California’s majority party) wants to rein in the voter-initiative process. Berggruen and Think Long believe that the key to renewing California is to raise taxes on almost all Californians. Their plan would make the state’s tax code less progressive by trimming the corporate tax rate and imposing a new sales tax on services. The goal: to provide still more revenue to a state government that’s already bloated and wasteful.

Conventional Thinking

Think Long released its utterly conventional recommendations with a burst of self-congratulation: “At a time when political leaders in both Sacramento and Washington seem hopelessly mired in gridlock, the committee has shown that difficult bipartisan compromise can be reached if politics is set aside and the public interest is put first.” These words might be more persuasive if Think Long weren’t composed of so many politicians who wielded power during the period when California’s budgetary problems became unmanageable. The committee’s members include former governor Gray Davis, bounced from office in the 2003 recall election; former assembly speakers Bob Hertzberg of Los Angeles and Willie Brown of San Francisco; and former state supreme court chief justice Ron George. Other advisors include former governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, current lieutenant governor Gavin Newsom, and Los Angeles mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. Most of these are poster children for what’s wrong with California; they are an unlikely group of saviors.

The report ignores the Golden State’s real problems: excessive government spending and dominance by public-sector unions and other special interests. The closest that Think Long comes to acknowledging them is three perfunctory paragraphs at the report’s end, which cite the pension crisis crushing municipal governments and offer this solution: “We recommend that the governor, legislature and local government officials make it the highest priority to work with public employee unions to find ways to address the long-term costs of pensions and the unfunded liabilities that have already been built up.” That’s as far as it goes.

Prison Costs

Nothing in the report comes close to articulating major reforms that would help the state stretch its dollars. For instance, the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office recently reported that the cost of incarcerating inmates in California has more than doubled over the past decade, the result not only of court decisions regarding inmates’ health care but also of escalating compensation costs for correctional officers. A braver committee would have considered prison privatization or constraining the influence of the noxious California Correctional Peace Officers’ Association, which resists even modest reforms and holds outsize influence over both parties.

Even soft-pedaling, Think Long provoked the ire of the California Teachers Association. The CTA resents the committee’s proposal to junk Proposition 98—which directs 40 percent of the state’s budget to education from kindergarten through community college—even though the report goes on to propose an extra $5 billion for the schools from other sources.

Every would-be reformer knows that something is wrong with California’s budget and political process. But most have tended to be left of center and have offered ceremonial, symbolic reforms that don’t get to the heart of the state’s problems. Think Long is the latest example, and its “blueprint,” like the work of its many predecessors, is likely to be soon forgotten.

The Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation has set aside about $350,000 to pay several hundred corrections officers while they attend their union’s annual convention later this month in Las Vegas.

Union dues, of course, come from the tax-funded paychecks of union members.

As I reported last year, the guards partied down at the Rio Las Vegas. Here’s a YouTube of the kind of fun that goes on there at the expense of the California taxpayers.

Party hearty, boys!

August 4, 2011