California Prison Guards Target Gov. Schwarzenegger

SAN FRANCISCO - California's powerful prison guards' union yesterday said it is launching a campaign to recall Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

The California Correctional Peace Officers Association is a long-time force in Sacramento politics, because of the financial wherewithal provided by the dues of more than 30,000 members.

The union began the recall process yesterday, according to multiple published reports. CCPOA spokesman Lance Corcoran was unavailable and his voice mailbox was full.

To place a recall measure on the ballot, backers will have to collect more than one million valid signatures from registered California voters.

The announcement of the recall effort comes as the state approaches its 10th week without an enacted budget in place, amid a seemingly intractable standoff between the Legislature's Republican minority - which refuses tax increases to close the $15 billion deficit - and majority Democrats who resist further program cuts.

Somewhere in the middle is the governor, who has been abandoned by his fellow Republicans after proposing a temporary sales tax hike as a compromise.

If only the state could tax irony; it could reap a windfall if the recall process moves forward, as Schwarzenegger himself ascended to the governor's office because of the successful campaign to recall his predecessor, Gray Davis.

Through a spokesman, Schwarzenegger said he would not be deterred by the threatened recall.

"CCPOA has sunk to a new low of special interest group politics," Adam Mendelsohn said in a statement yesterday. "This is the latest in intimidation tactic after intimidation tactic used by the prison guard union in their neverending effort to extract a huge pay raise out of the Legislature and the governor."

The prison guards have been working without a new contract since their previous deal expired in 2006.

According to published reports, Corcoran said the recall effort was triggered by the governor's recent executive order to drop most state employees, including prison guards, to minimum wage until a budget is enacted. State Controller John Chiang has refused to carry out the order, and employees are drawing full salaries as the issue is being litigated.

The recall process would be time consuming. After the governor is served, the secretary of state's office would have to approve language on the recall petitions, after which proponents would get 160 days to gather signatures.

The signature-gathering process is primarily a matter of money for paid petitioners, but the cost should be well within the reach of the deep-pocketed guards' union.

As a point of comparison, two bond measures were placed on this November's ballot by petition, though they only required about 433,000 signatures each.

Backers of a $980 million childrens' hospital bond measure spent about $1 million on the petition process, according to campaign finance report.

A T. Boone Pickens-controlled company reported spending $3 million to qualify a $5 billion "Alternative Fuel Vehicles and Renewable Energy" bond measure.

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