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CCPOA's Legislative Update: Summer 2007CCPOA 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.  Print This PageRETURN to Legislative Update Archive RETURN to CCPOA Capitol Watch MAIN PAGE |
