CA Republicans threaten to scuttle budget deal

It took less than a day for the California budget compromise to start coming apart at the seams.  Democrats and Republicans agreed on a sweeping package of cuts and budgetary gimmicks to erase a $26 billion deficit in state spending for this fiscal year, predicated on an agreement not to release prisoners early.  No sooner had the ink dried when Democrats reversed that position, leaving Republicans fuming — and promising to torpedo the compromise:

Threatening to scuttle California’s budget deal, Assembly Republican leader Sam Blakeslee accused Democrats on Tuesday of double-crossing him with an emerging plan to reduce the state’s prison population.

In an e-mail to colleagues titled “Budget Double Cross?” Blakeslee said the budget negotiated with Democrats clearly ruled out “early prisoner releases.”

Blakeslee also said that leaders had agreed to tackle the prison issue in August after the main budget bills had been approved by the Legislature, an action that tentatively is scheduled for Thursday.

“Just two hours ago I learned from staff that Senate Democrats are concocting a radioactive corrections bill that includes the worst of the worst – a sentencing commission and release of 27,000 prisoners, etc.,” Blakeslee wrote.

The Assembly Republican leader added that he had informed Assembly Speaker Karen Bass and Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg that “there will be no Republican votes for any portion of the budget if they allow such a bill to be part of the package.”

Arnold Schwarzenegger had used the threat of releasing thousands of prisoners onto California streets as a means to scare voters into supporting hefty tax increases in a special election.  That attempt utterly failed, and Republicans thought they had driven a stake through the heart of the idea in budget negotiations.  The Democrats seem insistent on releasing some prisoners, although they want to put them under electronic surveillance rather than release them outright.

Perhaps a case can be made that this will save California money, but that seems a little far-fetched.  The electronic surveillance costs money, as does police response on alarms.  The governor, apparently part of Democratic confabs on the issue, says that the idea is to keep people from entering the prison system in the first place, which might make more sense.

Will this get resolved “amicably,” as Schwarzenegger promises?  We’ll soon see.

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