Sep 1, 2009 3 min read

Those who meander along California’s middle of the political road often find themselves ambushed in the crossfire between red-blooded conservatives and true-blue liberals. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger often walks a political no-man’s land, denounced by those to his right as a RINO – Republican in name only – and by those to his left as a troglodyte, with his proposal to reduce the state’s prison population an excellent example.

The prisons contain almost twice as many inmates as they were designed to house, federal courts have already seized control of inmate medical care and judges have ordered the state to reduce the prison population by more than 40,000 inmates. Meanwhile, the latest version of the perpetually unbalanced state budget envisions a $1.2 billion reduction in prison spending.

Schwarzenegger has proposed to lower the inmate population by 27,000 by releasing some low-risk felons into alternative custody, diverting more prison-bound felons into local facilities, changing parole standards and creating a commission to overhaul sentencing guidelines.

The Schwarzenegger plan, worked out with Democratic legislative leaders, was immediately denounced by Republicans and law enforcement groups as dangerous but was cautiously embraced by prison reformers on the left. It made it through the state Senate last week by a bare-majority vote, with only Democrats supporting it.

But then it was hung up in the Assembly because Speaker Karen Bass couldn’t muster 41 Democratic votes as law enforcement groups ramped up their opposition. Many of those Democrats are seeking new offices next year, some of them statewide offices, and they feared being denounced by police and prosecutor groups if they voted for the plan. It is, in a sense, a revival of the soft-on-crime drives that worked so well for Republicans in the 1980s and early 1990s as they confronted Democrats in statewide contests and marginal legislative districts.

Bass wants to placate law enforcement critics while making enough of a dent in the prison population to meet the budget goal and pacify the federal judges, but it’s a very difficult, perhaps impossible, task.

When Democrats floated one revision that scaled back the releases and gave law enforcement representatives veto power on decisions of the sentencing commission, the left-of-center prison reform group erupted in anger.

“This amendment will eliminate any independence of the proposed sentencing commission,” said Ted Cassman, president of California Attorneys for Criminal Justice. “A single interest group should not be able to hold sentencing reform hostage in California.” An Assembly vote has been postponed amid reports that the sentencing commission may be eliminated. “When we arrive at a responsible plan that can earn the support of the majority of the Assembly and makes sense to the people of California, we will take that bill up on the Assembly floor,” Bass said.

E-mail Dan Walters at dwalters@sacbee.com. Back columns, www.sacbee.com/walters. Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.