California politics update

The Los Angeles Police Union wants the city of Los Angeles to pay overtime instead of hiring more officers:

Los Angeles Police Protective League President Paul M. Weber, in an interview and an opinion article submitted to The Times, called on the city's leaders to suspend their current policy of hiring new officers to replace those who resign or retire. It is a stance that, on the surface, runs counter to the union's traditionally staunch support for a larger police force.

Instead, Weber said, the department should shrink itself in order to use its scarce funds to restore overtime pay that has been cut because of the city's budget woes and to fill some of the hundreds of civilian posts at the Los Angeles Police Department that have gone vacant.

Police Chief Charlie Beck said the union's plan would jeopardize public safety. "We'd all like to return to a time where officers are paid for the overtime hours they work," he said. "But it is not in the interest of public safety to do that" by thinning the ranks of officers.

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The union's claim that a halt to police hiring would free up enough money to pay for overtime and hire civilians was false, Beck said.

He pointed to the roughly 200 new officers the department is scheduled to hire by the end of June, the close of the current fiscal year. If the department did as the union suggests and froze those plans, it would save about $2.2 million, Beck said. By contrast, the department would have to spend about $40 million in the same period if it once again began paying cash for overtime, he said.

Sun peeks through dark Sacramento clouds:

Step by step, Sacramento is being reformed. And don't be surprised if the pace naturally quickens.

Reform is progressing incrementally just fine — leaving behind some ponderous, well-intentioned, foundation-backed think tanks with politically unattainable ambitions.

A whole industry of academics and free-lancers has been feeding off the reform cause — one example being the failed attempt to call a state constitutional convention to essentially blow up the current governing system and build a new one. Too dramatic. Too risky. Can't happen.

Thank goodness for some good-government civic groups, such as the League of Women Voters. And, yes, even special interests such as labor unions and chambers of commerce. They've been moving one step at a time.

I'm thinking particularly of independent redistricting, which voters approved two years ago and reaffirmed Nov. 2, and the "top-two" open primary, passed by voters in June.

These election reforms won't officially take effect until the 2012 elections. But if you're a half-smart legislator who wants to be reelected, you won't wait until 2012 to start moderating your behavior. You'll anticipate the historic political shift and begin to adapt now.

A case involving overcrowding in California prisons is in front of the United States Supreme Court. The issue is whether the state can be forced to release more than 40,000 inmates because prisons in California are so overcrowded and the medical care provided to inmates is so bad that inmates are receiving cruel and unusual punishment.

Here's an op-ed in the Los Angeles Times that argues the prisoners should be released.