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Cavala: Editorial Opinion Masquerading as ‘News’ in the ‘Bee’

towashington 089.gif By Bill Cavala
A veteran of over 30 years in Sacramento

When their contract expired, the California Correctional Peace Officers Association tried to negotiate a renewal with Governor Schwarzenegger. The Governor declined to renew. The previous contract, from the standpoint of a Republican Governor, was a sweetheart deal the prison guards had extracted from Democrat Gray Davis. It was time to rollback provisions that gave managers supervision over sick leave and tied pay to that of other peace officers in admittedly liberal cities.

Without a new contract, the Governor could put into effect his “last and best offer” which included the rollbacks odious to the union. Faced with this, the union sought relief in the Legislature in 2007 with a last minute bill that included their demands. The bill was defeated amid the noisy opposition of the Capitol’s paper of record, the Sacramento Bee. The Bee, which has long opposed the goals of public employee unions, successfully painted the CCPOA effort as sleazy and underhanded, and it came to nothing.

Now, as this year’s Legislative session winds down – again with no resolution of the contract dispute between the Governor and CCPOA – things appear to be “stirring” again. The Bee has editorialized against “last minute” efforts to resolve the dispute legislatively on several different occasions. Today the Bee printed a story connecting a large prison guard contribution against the Governor’s redistricting initiative (Prop 11) to a not-yet introduced bill that would again seek a resolution of the prison guard issue in the Legislature.

The Bee has, of course, every right to its opinion on its editorial page. But their editorial opinion has, in this case, risen to a page 1 news story.

Because Senate Pro Tem Don Perata is the chief opponent of Prop 11, the Bee connected the dots in a ‘news’ story that suggested the CCPOA contribution could have been made “to Perata” in return for his support for another last minute effort to resolve their conflict legislatively. The fact that no bill exists that would resolve the guard’s contract issue – or that the deadline for amending bills to take such action without unanimous consent has passed – isn’t mentioned in the Bee’s “news” story.

Now Governor Schwarzenegger has amassed significant contributions on his side of the initiative – but the Bee has not even sought dots to connect in his regard. Why focus exclusively on union contributions? Surely the Bee could have unearthed a reliable source to pump up such a ‘news’ story with more editorial comment.

In fact, two-thirds of today’s Bee‘s “news” story consists of exactly such editorial comments – extracted from the quotes of former FPPC attorney Bob Stern. Stern these days gets his name in newspapers as a “source” for “good government” rebukes of actions taken by politicians. He is reliably outraged by anyone’s contribution, shocked and dismayed by the obvious connection he sees between campaign money and public policy. Did anyone inform Stern that no bill exists to be the object of his shock and dismay? The story doesn’t reflect that. But Stern can be reliably expected to parrot his usual response regardless of the factual situation.

This week the Bee announced that it had incurred additional financial losses. More staff cutbacks are to follow in the wake of earlier curtailments. Journalism that puts editorials on Page 1 masquerading as news may indicate an effort to retain readers by persuading them that mischief will occur if they don’t read the Bee.

We can assume that pictures of half-nude women will follow as the Bee descends in status from newspaper to tabloid.

So, the Bee fails to mention is that there exists no bill in the Senate or the Assembly to “resolve” the prison guards contract issues. Or that the date to gut and amend legislation has passed so that unanimous consent would be required to even begin the process. The Bee newspaper story really amounts to an editorial bashing of the prison guards for making a contribution.

Last year, the guards evidently believed they had sufficient commitments in the legislature to get their issue resolved there. They were wrong because, in their minds, the Speaker (Fabian Nunez) didn’t keep his word. Angered, the prison guards spent heavily in opposition to the initiative campaign, Prop 93 on term limits that would have given Nunez more time in the legislature. Now, presumably angry with the Governor for his role in their contract dispute, the prison guards are contributing heavily against his pet initiative, Prop 11. Senator Perata doesn’t fit into this picture at all – So why does the Bee feature his picture in their ‘news’ story?

Bill Cavala was Deputy Director of the Assembly Speaker’s Office of Member Services where he worked for over 30 years. He attended undergraduate and graduate school in the 1960’s and received a doctorate in political science at UC Berkeley. He taught political science at UC Berkeley during the 1970's while he worked part-time for the State Assembly.

Cavala left teaching at UC Berkeley for Assembly Speaker Willie Brown in 1981 until his tenure as Speaker ended in 1995, and he has worked for his five successors as Speaker. He now manages election campaigns for Democratic candidates.

Posted on August 27, 2008

Comments

If it acts like a whore ...

What a bogus story. If Perata and the guards union are in the same room, you can bet underhanded dealing are going on. Ya have a state that is so broke it can hardly function due to over and foolish spending. Ya have prison guards who are the highest paid in the nation earning salaries that are undeserved. You are paying about $15,000 per year per inmate over the national average for incarceration ... that is 2.4 BILLION dollars a year over the national average to incarcerate the same number of prisoners. Now you have the guards unions donating over a half-million dollars to this Perata Committee. The union could care less about the economic state California is in, they have one goal and one goal only ... to further their own dues paying base and they will pay the whore to get the job done. There is no justification for "prison guards" to earn the salary they are paid. Unions serve one purpose and one only, collect the maximum in dues at any cost. Perata and his committee are the whores and the guards union is both John and pimp at the same time.

Posted by: ZzyzxExit at August 28, 2008 07:14 AM

To those that feel California prison guards are overpaid, I only have one question... How much would they have to pay YOU to work in a prison where you could be assaulted/gassed/killed at the drop of a dime? They earn every penny and the fact that the GOV implemented last,best,&final and failed to provide the raises only furthers the fact that he is a man that can not keep his word. He just "changed up" again on the high speed train bond and agreed to sign it after stating he would sign no more bills. Correctional Officers and Parole Agent do line staff work at the prisons and in our communities. We do not make policy, or manage the department. Our department is screwed up because of poor management and we take the punishment for it. At this point, after implenting last,best/final, the state owes us two 5% raises retro from 7/1/06. CHP got their raises without any questions asked. Their pay raise is written into the government code and it's automatic. Why shouldn't all state peace officers have this? Last,best/final was the states decision, but now they need to pay up.

Posted by: Get Real at August 28, 2008 12:33 PM

you want to know why "prison guards" get paid so much?Because its a dirty dangerous job that nobody wants to do,but every busybody wants to critisize!California is the richest state in the country,its also the most expencive state to live in.So,wonder of wonders,California not only is able to pay,but must pay its employees more then any other state!!CHP,CALFIRE,Sherrif Deputy,Police Officers in local cities all get paid more in California!!In fact,your house is worth more in California!!!Pick up your house and move it to another state,and your $500,000.dollar investment will only be worth $250,000.,if you're lucky!So,stop blaming"prison guards"for wanting to get pay raises,or for even wanting a current contract to work under.We Correctional Officers are just like any other worker-public or private- we just have a more dangerous job !!

Posted by: marshrag at August 28, 2008 07:13 PM

The media isn't helping the situation by degrading Correctional Officers. The media should be promoting correctional peace officers to get more people to become one. There is such a current shortage of these officers. Many try becoming one but the job is so dirty, so negative, and the violence is unbelievable. To be honest most people can't handle the stress level and quit, or never become one. Because there is such a shortage, the state holds correctional officers for overtime. The officers don't even ask for the overtime! They are ordered to report for an additional shift. How many people like working 16 hours a day, day-after-day? How about working 32 hours in two days, or more than 32 hours? NOT MANY! The media keeps saying how greedy correctional officers are, but that's not the case at all. The media isn't helping the situation at all. Cut the pay and benefits of these peace officers and you can expect more officers either leaving their correctional officer positions, or not recruiting and keeping the overtime abundant. Also for those that don't know. Many Correctional Officers previously served in the armed forces, local police, sheriff and fire departments. They chose to step up and take on a very difficult job and should be rewarded with good pay, benefits, and retirement just like our other state peace officers (California Highway Patrol).

Posted by: Concerned Citizen at August 31, 2008 11:55 AM

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