University of California president proposes tuition freeze

SAN FRANCISCO - University of California President Janet Napolitano on Wednesday proposed freezing undergraduate tuition for the 2014-15 academic year, a move she said will give officials time to consider overhauling the UC's tuition system.

Napolitano, speaking at her first meeting of the UC regents since becoming president, said administrators will look for a "better way" to set tuition to avoid dramatic price increases in future years.

"We need to figure out, in the real world in which we live, how to bring clarity to, and reduce volatility in, the tuition-setting process," she said. "It's time for this university to collaboratively come up with a better way."

One option she said officials will consider is a so-called "cohort tuition," in which students are assured the tuition they pay when entering college will not dramatically change during their four years in school.

Napolitano's proposal to keep undergraduate tuition steady for a third consecutive year is in line with Gov. Jerry Brown's funding proposals. The Democratic governor has called for moderate annual increases in the UC budget as long as the UC does not raise tuition at least through 2016-17 academic year.

PHOTO: Janet Napolitano, then director of the Department of Homeland Security, shown on April 17, 2013. Abaca Press/ MCT/ Olivier Douliery. 

California's unemployment insurance deficit shrinking slowly

Although California's once-dismal employment picture is slowly improving, the state's Unemployment Insurance Fund is not only plagued by digital glitches, but is still paying out more in benefits than employers are paying into the UIF in taxes, according to a new report from the state Department of Employment Development.

Some other revenue, including earnings on fund balances, are offsetting the shortfall, so the immense deficit in the UIF, $10.2 billion at the end of 2012, will decline fractionally to $9.7 billion by the end of this year, the EDD report predicts, then continue to decline as employment improves and insurance benefit payouts drop.

The UIF deficit has been covered by loans from the federal government, on which the state is now paying interest, and the feds have also boosted their share of employers' payroll taxes to begin repaying the debt.

The department predicts that the UIF deficit will shrink to $7 billion by the end of 2015 as unemployment drops from 1.9 million workers in 2012 to 1.3 million in 2015 and payouts decline from $6.6 billion in 2012 to $5.7 billion in 2015.

Employers paid $5.4 billion into the UIF in 2012 and that is expected to increase to $6.2 billion in 2015. Additionally, the boost in federal taxes to repay the debt is expected to surpass $600 million this year and $1 billion by 2015.

The UIF pays basic benefits to unemployed workers and benefit extensions have been financed by the federal government. But due to the state's improving job picture, the 100 percent federally financed extension, which paid out $7.2 billion to jobless Californians in 2012, and $4.6 billion this year, will end on Dec. 31.

Gov. Jerry Brown has proposed changes in the unemployment insurance program to improve its ability to cope with economic downturns, but the Legislature has so far refused to act.

PHOTO: Former and current high school students attend a junior college exploration workshop sponsored by the Greater Sacramento Urban League. One of every three new high school graduates not going to college in the Sacramento region couldn't find work last year, census figures showed. The high school classes of 2009 and 2010 were about 40 percent less likely to find jobs out of school than their counterparts from three years prior. The Sacramento Bee/Randy Pench

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Gov. Jerry Brown signs clean energy pact with two states, Canadian province

SAN FRANCISCO — Gov. Jerry Brown signed a new pact Monday to formally align California's clean energy policies with those of Oregon, Washington state and British Columbia.

The agreement commits all four governments to work toward ways to put a price on carbon pollution, require the use of lower-carbon gasoline and set goals for reducing greenhouse gases across the region.

The nonbinding blueprint also sets new targets for electric vehicles — aiming for 10% of all new cars and trucks in the region to be emission-free by 2016 — and calls for the construction of a bullet-train system from Canada to California.

"These are modest steps," Brown told about 100 people at the San Francisco offices of computer hardware maker Cisco Systems, with sweeping views of the bay behind him. "We have to take action."

Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, a Democrat elected last year after 12 years in Congress, said he hoped the accord would send a message to the nation's capital, where Democrats and Republicans have been unable to agree on sweeping environmental legislation.

"Congress has ground to a halt because of climate deniers," he said. "I hope this can restart a national conversation, and hopefully action, on climate change."

This is not the first time California has sought cooperation with regional governments on environmental policy. All four participants in the new pact were members of the Western Climate Initiative, a 2007 regional accord intended to create a joint carbon-trading market.

Efforts to establish that market, which would have set a common levy on carbon emissions and established regional pollution caps, stalled in the Oregon and Washington legislatures.

Monday's agreement could face similar obstacles, but it gives the states more leeway to devise their own ways of charging polluters.

California has a carbon market that allows large polluters to buy the right to emit greenhouse gases. British Columbia has had a carbon-pollution tax since 2008. Either method would be permissible under the new blueprint.

Oregon Democratic Gov. John Kitzhaber said his state has not yet decided which policy to pursue.

In California, business groups that have voiced opposition to the state's emission targets said Monday's announcement was a positive step.

"We have always believed that we need a broad market that includes not only other states but other countries, in order for it to function efficiently," said Shelly Sullivan, a spokeswoman for the AB 32 Implementation Group, a business organization that has opposed state pollution controls.

The group is named for the 2006 law requiring California to reduce its greenhouse gases to 1990 levels by the year 2020.

"We have long argued that a state-only approach would crush the state economy," Sullivan said.

Brown has made climate change policy a centerpiece of his administration, vowing not to wait for it to come from Washington, D.C., where President Obama's plans to tighten controls on pollution have been stuck in a deadlocked Congress.

Earlier this year, Brown traveled to China and has signed agreements with that country to work toward slowing pollution that leads to global warming.

California has taken a leading role in efforts to cut carbon emissions. It has established a market to set a price that companies must pay to pollute. The state plans to link its market with one in the Canadian province of Quebec next year.

Although the agreement signed Monday is not legally binding, environmentalists in California are hopeful that it could serve as a road map for the next wave of state policy.

"It sends a signal to the Legislature," said Dan Jacobson, legislative director for Environment California, an advocacy organization, "to start introducing the bills to put these goals into law."

anthony.york@latimes.com

via http://www.latimes.com/local/la-me-brown-climate-20131029,0,140122.story#axzz2j3QS5Rql

California gets extra time to reduce prison crowding: another month

SACRAMENTO — Federal judges on Monday gave Gov.Jerry Brown an additional 28 days to meet their order to reduce prison crowding.

Brown, whose administration has been in court-ordered talks with inmates' lawyers in search of a long-term solution to overcrowding, now has until Feb. 24 to remove about 9,600 prisoners from state lockups.

The three-judge panel also said Monday that the negotiations must continue. State appellate judge Peter J. Siggins has been mediating those confidential talks, and on Monday he was told to provide another update in mid-November.

The judicial trio did not describe the state of the discussions in their order, and Siggins' report was confidential.

Last month, Brown filed a plan to expand rehabilitation services in hopes of eventually reducing new offenses by inmates who return to society, and he asked for three years to lower prisoner numbers that way. The judges gave him an extra month instead, moving their deadline to Jan. 27 from Dec. 31 and ordering the talks.

Corrections spokeswoman Deborah Hoffman said Monday the agency was pleased by the judges' extension of their deadline and would work with local government and law enforcement groups to "build upon California's landmark reforms to our criminal justice system."

Inmate advocates and civil rights groups want the state to take a different path from the one Brown has outlined in court filings. The groups want reductions in criminal penalties, expanded parole programs for the sick and old, and a backlog cleared for thousands of prisoners eligible to have their cases reheard.

California is halfway toward meeting the judges' inmate population cap through contracts for 3,180 beds in privately owned facilities and an increase in the number of prisoners sent to firefighting camps around the state.

The latest contract, announced Monday, is an $11-million, five-year deal with the private prison company Geo Group. California already has 8,300 prisoners in private prisons in other states, but the federal judges have temporarily blocked further such transfers.

In 2009, federal judges ordered California's prison population reduced, declaring that overcrowding was the root of unconstitutionally poor inmate care. Despite construction of a new medical prison and a court-run healthcare system, lawyers for prisoners say that care remains substandard and that mentally ill prisoners are mistreated.

California's corrections department "has never taken its obligation to provide basic healthcare seriously," said Don Specter, lead attorney for the Prison Law Office, testifying Monday at a legislative hearing on the state's prison problems.

The hearing was mostly a basic briefing, and no corrections officials testified. Assembly Public Safety Committee Chairman Tom Ammiano (D-San Francisco) said the next hearing, Nov. 13, will focus on alternative programs and sentencing.

Brown has taken the position since January that California's prison conditions are vastly improved. But court experts have continued to report poor medical services at some prison hospitals. A federal court has refused to relinquish control over mental health services, and the U.S. Supreme Court has rebuffed Brown's attempts to appeal capacity limits that he argues are arbitrary.

A report last week from the corrections department shows California's prison population up by more than 500 from a year ago, to more than 133,860 inmates.

paige.stjohn@latimes.com

chris.megerian@latimes.com

via http://www.latimes.com/local/la-me-ff-prisons-20131022,0,1115000.story#axzz2j3QS5Rql

Poll: Californians like ballot initiatives but want process altered

Californians value the ballot initiative and want it to remain as a check on a political system they mistrust, but voters support major reforms in the process, according to a new poll from the Public Policy Institute of California.

The poll found that voters support several changes, including giving the Legislature an opportunity to respond to proposed initiatives and reach agreement with their sponsors, beefing up financial disclosure requirements for those engaged in ballot measure campaigns, increasing the role of volunteers in collecting initiative petition signatures, and placing time limits on ballot measures so that they can be revisited.

"These reforms are likely to have an impact beyond the initiative process," Mark Baldassare, PPIC's president, said in a statement as he released the report. "They hold considerable promise for increasing citizen engagement, encouraging voter participation, and building trust in state government."

The number of ballot measures has exploded in the past three decades, ever since Proposition 13 placed tight limits on property taxes and raised barriers to other tax increases. In the last decade alone, 68 measures have appeared on the statewide ballot, the PPIC report noted, but fewer than a third of them were approved even as proponents and opponents spent $1.8 billion on campaigns.

The Legislature's majority Democrats have pushed bills to change the initiative process, including one this year that would limit the role of paid signature-gatherers. Gov. Jerry Brown is now deciding whether to sign or veto it.

PHOTO: A man signs a ballot measure petition in Sacramento on Jan. 9, 2008. The Sacramento Bee/ Anne Chadwick Williams.

via http://blogs.sacbee.com/capitolalertlatest/2013/10/californians-like-ballot-initiatives-but-want-changes-poll.html

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TAFT Correctional Facility to Reopen

TAFT, CA - Taft's Community Correctional Facility will reopen within the next two months. The city council approved a contract with L.A. County Tuesday to house its inmates. The agreement will bring back dozens of job and millions of dollars to the city of Taft.

Taft's Correctional Facility has sat empty for two years, but now it's about to reopen.

"This is a huge weight lifted off our shoulders," said Taft Mayor, Paul Linder.

In a unanimous vote, the Taft City Council approved a contract with L.A. County to house up to 512 low-level offenders for the next five years. 

"It's a relief. It's a big relief," said Taft Police Chief Ed Whiting. "Personally, I don't see why a jail should sit empty."

The state stopped housing inmates in the facility in November 2011, which cost the city money and jobs. Now, most of that is coming back.

According to the contract, Taft will add about 62 positions and get more than $11 million a year from L.A. County.

"This is good for them. It's good for us. It's also good for the inmates," said Chief Whiting.

Taft's Police Chief said it's good because the extra bed space will allow L.A. County to ease its jail overcrowding, and the inmates in Taft will have the option to work in the community like Kern County inmates, either picking up trash or doing road work.

"It gives the inmates something to do except sit in the cell all day," said Chief Whiting. "They'll get to work, and they'll get credit towards their release."

A work release Taft couldn't have done if they would have agreed to house the state inmates the California Department of Corrections wanted to send to Taft.

"It's just a better deal, and we're trying to the do the best for the community," said Mayor Linder.

"It took a lot of work on both ends and we're finally happy it's come together," said Chief Whiting.

Inmates could start coming to Taft as soon as November 18.

Check out video at: http://www.kget.com/news/local/story/Taft-correctional-facility-to-reopen/r6ZF7zgae0mQpcvOmv9xzQ.cspx

Jerry Brown OKs change to drug-law definition of 'transporting'

Gov. Jerry Brown has signed legislation easing penalties for people accused of carrying illegal drugs for their own use in California, his office announced Thursday.

Assembly Bill 721, by Assemblyman Steven Bradford, D-Gardena, will change the definition of "transporting" a drug to mean transporting it for sale, eliminating prosecutors' ability to bring an additional charge against someone who might otherwise be accused only of possession.

"Too many people are getting caught up in the prison system with nothing more than a small amount of drugs for personal use," Bradford said in a prepared statement. "The broad interpretation of existing law wastes resources going after users instead of dealers."

Opponents said the bill was unreasonably soft on criminals.

The bill was one of nearly 30 the Democratic governor announced action on Thursday. Brown has less than two weeks to sign or veto hundreds of more bills sent to him before the Legislature adjourned for the year.

PHOTO: Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, left, Gov. Jerry Brown, center, and Assembly Speaker John A. Pérez, right, celebrate a budget deal with a formal announcement at the California Capitol on Tuesday, June 11, 2013. The Sacramento Bee/Randy Pench

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Advocates urge Gov. Jerry Brown to veto gun bills

With Gov. Jerry Brown days away from deciding the fate of a stack of gun bills, Second Amendmentadvocates today delivered to the governor's office about 67,000 signed letters imploring him to veto the 14 prospective laws.

"California already has some of the strictest gun laws in the nation and these 14 measures are particularly onerous," said Craig DeLuz, a legislative advocate for the California Association of Federal Firearms Licensees.

Senate Bill 374 that bans detachable magazines in rifles and Assembly Bill 711 that prohibits the use of lead ammunition are among the measures the gun-rights groups want Brown to stop from becoming law.

SB 374 was authored by Sen. President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, and AB 711 was from Anthony Rendon, D-Lakewood.

While Brown has tipped his hand on a number of controversial bills, the governor has been decidedly tight-lipped on the gun bills, many of which grew out of the outrage following the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Connecticut.

DeLuz and his colleagues suspect the governor will take a reasoned look at the bills and sign some and veto others.

"Politically, we want to make sure he understands there are a lot of voters out there who believe in the Second Amendment -- and that we are watching what he does."

PHOTO: Brandon Combs, managing director of the Firearms Policy Coalition, left, and Craig DeLuz, legislative advocate for California Association of Federal Firearms Licensees, deliver about 67,000 petitions urging the governor's veto of 14 gun bills. The Sacramento Bee/Christopher Cadelago

via http://blogs.sacbee.com/capitolalertlatest/2013/10/advocates-urge-gov-jerry-brown-to-veto-gun-bills.html

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Deal to ease prison crowding sails through Assembly

SACRAMENTO--A deal brokered by Gov. Jerry Brown and legislative leaders to ease prison crowding passed with overwhelming approval in the Assembly on Wednesday.

By a 75-0 vote, lawmakers approved the proposal, announced Monday, under which the state would ask a panel of three federal judges for time to expand programs aimed at reducing new crimes by ex-cons.

If the judges reject an extension, the state would spend $315 million this year to increase prison capacity in time to comply with the court's order to shrink the prison population by about 9,600 inmates by the end of the year.

The deal broke an impasse over how to comply with the order that pits the governor, Assembly Speaker John A. Pérez (D-Los Angeles) and Republican legislative leaders against Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento), who sought more funding to address drug abuse and mental illness.

Pérez, speaking on the floor, said the compromise "allows for us to  comply with the three-judge panel’s order but also would not allow for any inmates to be released early from prison."

He took pains to thank the Republican leaders in both houses for coming on board.

"This is a solution that truly was only possible because of the early bipartisan work between the governor, myself and the two Republican leaders," he said.

Even Assemblyman Tim Donnelly (R-Twin Peaks), one of the most conservative lawmakers in the Capitol, chimed in to voice "rare support" of the speaker's comments.

The warm feelings did not extend to the federal courts. 

"We are here today because the federal courts have forced our hand," said Assemblyman Jeff Gorell(R-Camarillo).

"This is absurd. We ought to add extra desks so the judiciary can join us and continue to make decisions for this body," said Gorell. "It’s a ridiculous precedent."

The bill now heads to the Senate for final legislative approval.

LA Times -By Melanie Mason

PHOTO: Leftwing Nutjob 2011

California Budget Delivers Blow to Government Transparency

Legislation allows local agencies to ignore required procedures ensuring public's 
access to government records, data

By Giana Magnoli, Noozhawk Staff Writer

The state budget that passed the Legislature last week contains language that could gut the California Public Records Act, the 1968 law that requires “the people’s business” to be conducted transparently and ensures that the public has access to most government records.

The Democratic-controlled Legislature approved the $96.3 billion budget Friday, with state Sen. Hannah-Beth Jackson, D-Santa Barbara, and Assemblyman Das Williams, D-Santa Barbara, voting for the bill. Assemblyman Katcho Achadjian, R-San Luis Obispo, who represents northern Santa Barbara County, voted against it.

Gov. Jerry Brown is expected to sign the legislation soon, ensuring the budget is enacted by its July 1 deadline.

Tucked into the bill, however, is a key amendment that could severely hamper the public’s ability to track government spending and hold local officials accountable.

Senate Bill 71 makes portions of the Public Records Act process optional for local government agencies. If the agencies choose not to comply, they won’t have to respond to a public request for information within 10 days or provide any reason for taking longer than 10 days, or they can deny the request altogether. Under the bill, they also can choose an alternate format to release information that is available electronically.

“This is an outrageous loophole for government transparency,” Noozhawkpublisher Bill Macfadyen said. “While claiming to pinch pennies in a $96 billionbudget, legislators are instead making it easier to hide government activities from taxpayers, from the media and from watchdog organizations.

“The public has limited recourse against the formidable power of government, but the requirement of transparency generally makes it a fair fight.”

Under the legislation, local agencies are “encouraged” to follow the Public Records Act “as best practices,” but any agency can merely announce that it will not be compliant at its first regularly scheduled meeting after Jan. 1, 2014, and annually afterward.

The bill takes effect as soon as Brown signs it, however, so government agencies that are predisposed to withholding information could do so now, and not declare it until January, noted Jim Ewert, general counsel for the California Newspapers Publishers Association.

“It’s a little disconcerting to say the least, and that’s putting it lightly,” he said.

Ewert and his organization hope to sit down with legislators and stakeholders to “try and clean this up,” but they don’t have much time before the budget’s deadline at the end of the month.

“For agencies that decide they no longer want to follow these provisions in the act, it’s going to create a very difficult situation for both the public and the agencies,” Ewert said. “I think this is going to be a litigation cauldron because nobody’s going to know what the scope of the provisions are.”

Eliminating the requirement for agencies to provide electronic records will allow local governments to limit data access, according to the First Amendment Coalition, a nonprofit public interest group.

Data can be produced in formats that are unusable in databases, perhaps as PDF files instead of Excel files, even if the agency already has the data in the requested format, First Amendment Coalition members wrote in a commentary piece against the SB 71 language.

The bill also could eliminate the requirement for agencies to help people with their requests for information, and give no reason for denying a request. If someone asks for information that an agency argues is exempt, it starts a dialogue about the information and how to request information that is legally available, Ewert said.

“Now, the only way a requester is going to know about that is if he or she sues!” he said. “And agencies can’t be too fond of that either.”

Brown and the Department of Finance argue that the state shouldn’t have to reimburse local agencies for processing these requests, but Ewert said the administration never identified a figure associated with savings for this policy change.

“We can’t even do a cost-benefit analysis because there’s no number!” he exclaimed.

Jackson, who co-sponsored the bill in the Senate, said the measure shifts the cost for maintaining local records to local governments instead of the state, but doesn’t suspend the Public Records Act itself. She said the state currently reimburses local agencies for the cost of their compliance, which she said amounts to “tens of millions of dollars” annually, without much accountability on the real cost to local communities for providing the services.

The Legislative Analyst’s Office didn’t have “an exact number” on this, she said.

“The two major portions of the act — assistance in seeking public records and the notification requirement — were both bills that were passed while I was in the stateAssembly and I supported both of them,” Jackson said. “I and probably most of the people here do support access to public records; this simply shifted the fiscal responsibility.”

Local governments can still charge reasonable costs for copies and processing fees, as they already do.

Jackson acknowledged that the Public Records Act will be optional for governments to follow in the future.

“It’s optional to the extent that local jurisdictions are urged to do best practices and if they choose not to, they’ll have to answer to the local community,” she said.

Jackson, who supported the fight against an unsuccessful proposal by Brown to charge the public a $10 per file court records fee, said accountability should be a priority, but the state can’t afford to pay for local governments to provide records.

“It’s a compromise document, that’s the nature of politics,” she said.

Williams said he doubts many government agencies will change their process, especially with pressure from constituents.

“I’m less than thrilled, but the Commission on State Mandates determined that this category of mandates would be state-reimbursable,” Williams said. “If the legislature hadn’t taken this step, they would have had to reimburse cities and counties for Public Record Act requests which, you know, the state can’t afford.”

He said it came down to priorities, and the “extremely responsible budget” prioritizes public education.

“There was a choice between rolling back the cuts that have happened to community colleges and local schools, and paying for public information requests, and for me that’s a pretty easy choice.”

But Macfadyen argued that legislators have no right to make compromises with the public’s access.

“California’s Public Records Act was passed in 1968 to make sure the people’s business is conducted in full view of all, and voters added it to the state Constitutionin 2004,” he said.

“For Sacramento to turn around and defy the public’s will is a chilling development that threatens the rights of all Californians.”

The City of Santa Barbara plans to continue replying to Public Records Act requests as usual, said Marcelo Lopez, assistant city administrator.

“We’re planning to stay in compliance and honor the way we have replied to requests for public information in the past,” he said.

“If we have the information, we’ll provide it to you.”

Goleta Mayor Roger Aceves wasn’t aware of the specifics included in SB 71, and said he would be checking with city staff to get more information. He noted that the City of Goleta prides itself on being transparent and responding to records requests in a timely manner.

— Noozhawk staff writer Giana Magnoli can be reached atgmagnoli@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk,@NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.

Federal judges order California to free 9,600 inmates

SACRAMENTO — A trio of federal judges ordered Gov. Jerry Brown to immediately begin freeing state inmates and waived state laws to allow early releases, threatening the governor with contempt if he does not comply.

Citing California's "defiance," "intransigence" and "deliberate failure" to provide inmates with adequate care in its overcrowded lockups, the judges on Thursday said Brown must shed 9,600 inmates —about 8% of the prison population — by the end of the year.

Unless he finds another way to ease crowding, the governor must expand the credits that inmates can earn for good behavior or participation in rehabilitation programs, the judges said.

"We are willing to defer to their choice for how to comply with our order, not whether to comply with it," the judges wrote. "Defendants have consistently sought to frustrate every attempt by this court to achieve a resolution to the overcrowding problem."

If Sacramento does not meet the inmate cap on time, the judges said, it will have to release prisoners from a list of "low risk" offenders the court has told the administration to prepare.

Brown had already taken steps to appeal the court-imposed cap to the U.S. Supreme Court, and he vowed to fight the latest ruling as well.

"The state will seek an immediate stay of this unprecedented order to release almost 10,000 inmates by the end of this year," he said in a statement.

He had immediate backing from the California Police Chiefs Assn. The court order shows "a complete disregard for the safety of communities across California," said the group's president, Covina Police Chief Kim Raney.

"Pressing for 9,000 more inmates on the streets," Raney said, shows "an activist court more concerned with prisoners than the safety of the communities."

But a spokesman for the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department said it did not expect to have to contend with a flood of ex-convicts to watch over.

"It is never a positive step when prisoners have to be released," said spokesman Steve Whitmore, "but the Sheriff's Department is prepared for this eventuality."

Brown has until July 13 to file his full appeal with the high court, the same body that two years ago upheld findings that California prison conditions violated the constitutional prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment.

Lawyers for inmates, meanwhile, said Brown has few options but to let some prisoners go.

"At this point, the governor is an inch away from contempt," said Don Specter, lead attorney for the Prison Law Office, which in 2001 filed one of two lawsuits on which the judges based their order. "He must make every effort to comply immediately."

In May, Brown told the court under protest that he could further trim the prison population by continuing to use firefighting camps and privately owned facilities to house state inmates, and by leasing space in Los Angeles and Alameda county jails. In that plan, increasing the time off that inmates may earn for good behavior would have had little impact.

Thursday's order requires, absent other solutions, that the state give minimum-custody inmates two days off for every one served without trouble and to apply those credits retroactively. Such a step could spur the release of as many as 5,385 prisoners by the end of December.

A separate lawsuit, dating to 1990, alleges unconstitutionally cruel treatment of mentally ill inmates. That the courts are still trying, after two decades, to fix prison conditions was not lost on the three-judge panel that oversees prison crowding, U.S. District Judges Lawrence Karlton and Thelton Henderson and U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Stephen Reinhardt.

Their order accuses the state of "a series of contumacious actions" and challenges Brown's sincerity about obeying their orders. They noted that the governor lifted an emergency proclamation that allowed inmates to be transferred to prisons in other states, for example.

Requests from prison lawyers that the administration be held in contempt "have considerable merit," the judges wrote.

The governor's reluctance to set prisoners free early has the backing of legislative leaders, including Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento). He joked openly on Wednesday about intending to kill any population-reduction plans the courts might order the governor to submit to the Legislature.

Republicans in the Legislature have pushed a plan to resume prison expansion in California.

In April, they urged Brown to restore borrowing authority that would have allowed 13,000 beds to be added. They also asked that he continue to pay to house some prisoners in private facilities in the interim. Brown did not include such provisions in the budget that is now on his desk.

The judges said there could be no delays in compliance with their order for appeals or for amendments to the plan Brown submitted in May.

They rejected state officials' assertion that "with more time, they could resolve the problem."

California voters may be more willing than Brown to release inmates to reduce crowding. In a recent USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times poll, they were wary of sacrificing public safety, but at the same time supported steps to reduce crowding.

Sixty-three percent said they favored releasing low-level, nonviolent offenders from prison early.

paige.stjohn@latimes.com

Times staff writers Chris Megerian and Richard Winton contributed to this report.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-ff-brown-prisons-20130621,0,6492733.story

Statewide Day of Action - May Revision Actions

1515 Clay Street

Oakland, CA

12 noon

Contact: Pete at pete@communitychange.org 

or at 510-504-9552

State Building

2550 Mariposa Mall

Fresno, CA 93721

12 noon

Contact: Elizabeth at ecamarena@communitychange.org or

Rose at rauguste@health-access.org

300 S. Spring Street

Los Angeles, CA

12 noon

Contact Astrid at 714-396-8242 or

At acampos@communitychange.org

3649 Mission Inn Avenue

Riverside, CA 92501

(In front of Gandhi Statue)

11am

Contact Maribel at

mnunez@communitychange.org or

at 562-569-4051

The Capital

Sacramento, CA

Room: TBD

Time: following the Governor’s Announcement 10am-1pm

Contact Pete at peter@communitychange.org 

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Editorial: Brown needs to convene prison settlement talks

Gov. Jerry Brown and the Legislature did a heavy lift in reducing California's 33 overcrowded state prisons from 141,000 inmates to 119,000 in two years. But the effects of Brown's public safety realignment have plateaued.

The state still has 9,000 inmates to go to meet the population cap affirmed by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2011 – reducing prison population to 137.5 percent of design capacity (110,000) and sustaining that reduction.

Unfortunately, Brown has been bellicose in saying "no more" and he intends to appeal all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, again. Appeals may delay the reckoning, as before, but are highly unlikely to end federal oversight.

All this fighting is sidetracking everybody from the real task – which should be finding common ground around durable remedies to reduce prison population. A better course would be for Brown to bring Assembly and Senate leaders, law enforcement officials, the federal health receiver and special master, the corrections secretary and Prison Law Office attorneys in the same room and hammer this out.

Further prison reductions need not be onerous, unworkable or detrimental to the public interest.

For example, to his credit, Brown says he is open to expanding prison fire camps, which are well below the 4,500 capacity. Brown wants to add 1,250 inmates by Dec. 31. He should go further. Today, inmates with serious or violent offenses are barred from fire camps, even if they are rated low risk. The Legislative Analyst's Office last year recommended changing the eligibility criteria to consider risk, looking at all 30,000 low-security inmates. The state needs more fire crews than ever.

Brown has given short shrift to expanding geriatric parole to address the rapidly aging prison population that is driving prison health costs. Many of the 6,500 inmates who are 60 or older pose little threat to public safety but cost the state a lot in health expenses. Brown believes 250 of these inmates could be paroled by Dec. 31. Legislators should change the law to expand that.

Brown also is dismissive of expanding earned-time credits for inmates who successfully complete education, vocational training and treatment programs that reduce recidivism rates. California only allows up to six weeks a year, well below other states. Why not increase the length of good-time credits to the national average of four to six months?

In addition, Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg has a proposal to address mental health and substance abuse issues that get people cycling in and out of jail and prison. And while Steinberg was early to jump on Brown's appeal bandwagon, he is open to expanding fire camps, parole for elderly inmates and earned-time credits.

The big missing piece is sentencing reform, creating a sentencing commission to create a framework for organizing the state's piecemeal sentencing laws. In states such as North Carolinaand Virginia, sentencing commissions have brought longer sentences for violent offenders, tougher community punishments, more consistency and an end to prison crowding. Steinberg is strongly supportive. Brown should champion this.

Prison reform advocates say they are open to negotiating the crowding issue, though they have won most of the important court orders. Brown should take heed of this. Don Specter, director of the Prison Law Office, says sitting in a room together would go a long way in overcoming the balkanization and distrust that has built up.

California should build on the progress of the last two years, not stop the prison overhaul. The governor needs to get everybody to the table now and craft durable remedies that would end federal oversight of California's prisons.

http://www.sacbee.com/2013/05/08/5402832/brown-needs-to-convene-prison.html

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