Schwarzenegger's crime-time bid (mending fences w/CCPOA and victims' rights groups)

Sac Bee ^ | 4/30/06 | Andy Furillo

[NormsRevenge]

He fought off a challenge to the state's three-strikes law, endorsed the Jessica's Law initiative cracking down on sex offenders and has denied clemency on every petition sent his way from death row. But coming into the 2006 political season, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger still found himself vulnerable on the crime issue, thanks to a relentless campaign waged against him last year by the California prison cops union and two leading victims rights groups that it supports.

Schwarzenegger's top-level administrative staff, however, has shifted into overdrive this year to shore up his standing with his adversaries on the criminal justice front, regularly meeting with them in recent months after freezing them out of the loop for the better part of a year.

The effort appears to be paying off.

Last week, the same victim activists who had been ripping Schwarzenegger - including one who cut a television ad telling the governor, "You let us down" - stood behind him at a press conference where he signed an executive order creating a new gubernatorial victims advocate.

"We're excited with this move," one-time Schwarzenegger antagonist Christine Ward of the Doris Tate Crime Victims Bureau told reporters at the Monday press conference.

Leaders of the politically influential California Correctional Peace Officers Association, meanwhile, who also spent much of 2005 attacking Schwarzenegger, are now meeting regularly with the Republican governor's top staff and recently benefitted from the appointment of a new prison director who has vowed to open lines of communication with them.

While the union has yet to declare a new era of good feeling with Schwarzenegger, the CCPOA - with a labor contract set to expire in July - confirmed that its relationship with the administration is improving.

[NormsRevenge]

Any bets on what the CCPOA gets in its new contract?

It is an election year and the Gub is quite the politico of late.

[calcowgirl]

But there is no question there has been a thaw, which Corcoran attributed to Schwarzenegger's appointment of Susan Kennedy as his chief of staff... "She has an enormous amount of respect from the leadership (in the union) for her diligence and for her energy and commitment to finding common ground," Corcoran said.

Harriet Salarno of Crime Victims United credited Schwarzenegger senior adviser Bonnie Reiss for the recent changes, approaching her and Ward earlier this year and getting them into meetings with Kennedy and Schwarzenegger. "We finally got somebody to listen," said Salarno, the activist who appeared in the television ad last year scolding the governor.

Sure am glad we have a Republican administration! Oh, wait a minute--Reiss and Kennedy are both rabid democrats.

[NormsRevenge]

I'm just glad we have a few Republicans left in the legislature to stop this madness we are about to witness again.


Not sure that will hold true much longer if many more of them turn moderate on us.

[calcowgirl]

I'm just glad we have a few Republicans left in the legislature to stop this madness we are about to witness again.

Me too! They are my heroes. Strong, united opposition to liberalism is our only hope.
[Why am I hearing Pete Wilson whining something about being "irrelevant"?]

[Amerigomag]

The Austrian blows up another box to save the state money! The demolition of this will only add about a quarter million to each annual budget.

What the hell! It's only tax money and the Austrian is a Republican.