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Legal News - ArchiveLegal news and updates direct from CCPOA - no media "filters."CCPOA's Legislative Update: Summer 2007 Schwartz for CalPers - August 18, 2006 Costly Privatization Plan Implemented - January 11, 2006 Headquarters Update/Changes - October 24, 2005 Why CCPOA Opposes Prop 75 - September 12, 2005 Legislative Update - June 29, 2005 OPPOSED BILLS - May 27, 2004 CCPOA's Legislative Update: Summer, 2007 CCPOA continues to remain an effective advocate for all of its members at the Capitol in Sacramento. Our association has sponsored a number of individual pieces of legislation designed to address and correct issues affecting the entire correctional peace officer series. CCPOA's legislative team is headed by Lance Corcoran, CCPOA's Chief of Governmental Affairs. He directs the lobbying team comprised of 3 outside lobbying firms and coordinates with the CCPOA Executive council and and the CCPOA Legislative committee to ensure that the positions taken by this organization are consistent with the views of the membership and leadership of CCPOA. Below are some of the bills that we have sponsored this year that continue to move through the legislative process, followed by a number of bills which were opposed by CCPOA and subsequently died for the remainder of this legislative year. We have also included, for your review, a comparison of the legislative positions taken by CCPOA and the positions taken by CCSO. We will leave it up to you to decide which organization best represents the interests of its members. CCPOA-Sponsored Bills Veterans Benefits AB 696 (Hernandez) Provides that a state employee, who is a member of the California National Guard or a United States military reserve organization and was ordered into active duty on or after September 11, 2001, and who is employed by the state on or after January 1, 2008, is entitled to retain any hazardous duty pay, hostile fire pay, imminent danger pay or any other special incentive pay provided by the federal government. When it comes to taking a leadership role in securing tangible benefits for its members, CCPOA shines once again. Similarly, CCSO was once again no where to be found in the legislative record in support of this important bill for employees in the correctional peace series who are also members of our national armed forces. You can see for yourself in the most recent official committee analysis at: [LINK] C-POST Re-Authorization AB 890 (Aghazarian) CCPOA sponsored this measure to re-establish the Commission on Correctional Peace Officer Standards & Training due to the inability of the Corrections Standards Authority to perform these important duties. Since abolishing the commission in 2005, the overall quality of correctional training has suffered. In fact, the Office of Inspector General's (OIG) 2006 audit of the Correctional Standards Authority (CSA), had almost entirely failed to conduct oversight of officer training. The OIG reported that CSA's failure was so serious that the program was at risk for being out of compliance with federal and state apprenticeship standards leaving the program at serious risk of being decertified. CCPOA was the original sponsor of the legislation which created C-POST back in the 1990's. C-POST was eliminated and consolidated into the new CSA when the CDC was restructured into the CDCR. CCPOA has long advocated for increased and improved training for all correctional peace officers. Sadly, CCSO remained silent on behalf of its members and is once again missing from the official legislative analysis detailing formal support and/or opposition to the bill. While the bill was in the Assembly, CCSO was the only opposition listed. Each Assembly Committee and the full Assembly Floor ignored (as it usually does) CCSO's opposition and passed the bill overwhelmingly. CCSO failed to muster even a single vote against this common-sense measure. Here is the official legislative analysis describing CCSO's opposition: [LINK] Assembly Public Safety passed the bill 7-0 Assembly Appropriations passed the bill 17-0 Assembly Floor passed the bill 78-0 Senate Public Safety passed the bill 4-0 Maybe CCSO should have read the OIG report before taking such a professionally-regressive position. The bill recently cleared the Senate Public Safety Committee and now awaits action in the Senate Appropriations Committee. Parole and Drug Court Expansion SB 391 (Ducheny) This bill seeks to improve the rehabilitation of parolees, reduce recidivism, reduce prison overcrowding, and improve public safety through the use of intermediate sanctions for low-level offenders who violate parole with an emphasis on short-term commitments. CCPOA once again demonstrates its leadership role in helping CDCR do what it should have been doing for years. CCSO, a consistent non-entity when it comes to crafting effective correctional improvement policy, remained silent on the sidelines as this bill secured bi-partisan support in both houses of the Legislature and now awaits action in the Assembly Appropriations Committee. CCPOA-Opposed Bills Peace Officer Personnel Records – Confidentiality SB 1019 (Romero) One of the most high-profile public safety bills of the year died in the Assembly Public Safety Committee amid overwhelming opposition by peace officer groups throughout the state. Dozens of law enforcement groups, including CCPOA, set letters of opposition and testified before the Legislature about our concerns over compromising peace officer safety if disciplinary personnel records were released to the public. Curiously, CCSO was not among the law enforcement groups on record with the Assembly Public Safety Committee in opposition to this bill. For a copy of the committee analysis which lists supporters and opponents, please go to the legislative website: www.legalinfo.ca.gov. Association Memberships SB 600 (Scott) This was a CCSO-sponsored bill that sought to prevent correctional supervisors from belonging to organizations that included rank-and-file employees. Even Sen. Scott, the author of the bill, recognized the foolish and weak power-grab attempt by such an irrelevant group and pulled the bill without it ever having a single vote of support by anyone at the Capitol. CCSO's embarrassing defeat of this bill demonstrates once again their well-known ineffectiveness in the halls of the Legislature. Their failed attempt to secure through law what they cannot accomplish on their own merits – the successful representation and protection of the interests of correctional peace officer supervisors - leaves them with just one legislative victory in the history of their 10-year existence: the banning of tobacco products in state prisons. Way to look after your members, Dick. August 18, 2006 - Schwartz for CalPers Just prior to announcing an all-encompassing $225 BILLION plan to address California's crumbling infrastructure do you: a) re-open/fill existing cost-effective fire camps with Level I inmates; b) ensure that all MSFs have full compliment of Level I inmates to provide necessary services to state facilities; or c) transfer 360 Level I inmates to a closed private prison and transfer an additional 225 Level II inmates to other private prisons operated by large campaign contributors, costing taxpayers additional tens of millions of dollars (but only after you de-activate MSF, other beds from existing state facilities)?? See attached official notice from DPA informing CCPOA of their answer. You get three guesses. [FULL DOCUMENT] Prepared by Lance Corcoran Dated: Oct. 24, 2005 As you may have heard, there have been some major changes within the leadership of CCPOA. I have taken a new position within the organization as Chief of Governmental Affairs. Chuck Alexander is now the Executive Vice President and Chuck Helton from North Kern State Prison is now CDC Rank and File Vice President. These changes, of course, are pending confirmation at this week's CCPOA board meeting in Sacramento. Why the changes? Well, for some time now your CCPOA leadership has recognized a need to increase communication to our members. One of the tasks I have been assigned in my new position is to get information out to the membership, the state Legislature, and the public as quickly as possible. We want to timely follow up on articles in the news, to provide as rapid a response as possible in an effort to educate everyone to the realities of the profession. The direction of CCPOA's Legislative Division is now twofold: not only will we be pursuing and monitoring legislation on behalf of our members, we will also be updating our website, hotline, and publications so that our members are getting real-time information on the issues affecting their lives. On that note, you may have heard that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger continues to pursue his so-called "reform agenda." Of particular importance to the members of CCPOA is Proposition 75. This is the initiative that, unbelievably, is sometimes called the "Paycheck Protection" proposition. Trust me, Prop. 75 does not do a thing to protect our paychecks. In fact, it is simply a preliminary step to silence our voices, in order to make a run on our rights, our paychecks, and our pensions. If Prop 75 passes, only public employee associations will have to go to all of their members and have them fill out a card authorizing the organization to use a portion of their dues for political action. Prop. 75 creates a bureaucracy that only applies to you, as public employees of this state. Why? So those behind Prop. 75 can silence our collective voices. Big business politically outspends labor by nearly 24 to 1 in California and they are tired of you -- the working people -- being more successful than they are. Think of the money CCPOA would have to spend annually contacting each and every member, getting their signatures on a special card, and maintaining the cards for all members until it's time to do it again 365 days later. In postage alone one mailing would run nearly $10,000. And what is really outrageous is our members already have the right to object to their dues being used for political purposes. When a new member signs up with CCPOA, he or she has the opportunity to check a box on the application form that lets the organization know that the member does not want his or her dues monies to be used for political purposes. The member pays the same dues -- the portion normally offset for political action instead goes into the Association's general fund. A correctional officer may also elect to only pay a fair share fee by either not signing up with CCPOA or dropping membership. Now, we know that not every member agrees with all of the political endorsements and endeavors of CCPOA. Truth is, not even the members who serve on your political action committee always agree. But the facts cannot be argued: CCPOA is as strong as it is because we go toe-to-toe with big business interests in supporting candidates who care about the lives and working conditions of our members. We make no apology for our success. Rest assured, the proponents of Prop. 75 don't care about you or your paycheck. If anything, they'd like to see your paycheck shrink. And don't be fooled by those who say that if Prop. 75 passes, your dues will go down. CCPOA dues will remain the same. Prop. 75 is an unnecessary waste of time and tax dollars. We strongly urge a NO vote on Prop. 75. In other news, vacancies are at an all time high. This will be a main topic at the upcoming board meeting and will be at the forefront of our legislative agenda. While Corrections Secretary Rod Hickman continues to pat himself on the back regarding the reorganization of the Agency, nothing has changed on the front lines. We see that Hickman and many of his fellow officials got new titles and letterhead. We see that the number of bureaucrats in Corrections headquarters has expanded, but where the rubber hits the road, on the tiers, cell blocks, and yards, nothing has changed. Oh, wait, I take that back. We do have inmates in dayrooms... We can, however, take comfort in Hickman's weekly message, where he writes, "We are getting there. It's not going to happen overnight or over the next 12 months, but change is happening and good things will come to those who are patient enough to wait for the seed we are sowing now to blossom and bear fruit." Oh, please! We are "getting there?" Exactly where is there, and do we really want to go there? Empty words and superficial pats on the back are hardly going to help the officer who is working his fifth or sixth involuntary overtime and is so tired he can hardly stand up. The words "evidenced-based recidivism reduction programs" don't mean a thing to an officer who missed her child's birthday party or an anniversary dinner because she was held over one more time. Do something about the vacancies, Hickman, before it's too late! Below is a list of talking points as to why CCPOA and other state employee unions are against Proposition 75. Please read and share this with your friends and family and urge them to assist us in stopping the passage of Prop. 75. Thank you for your help. Perry Speth- CCPOA State Secretary No on Prop 75 Talking Points Prop. 75 has a hidden agenda to silence those who oppose the Governor's bad ideas for California
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