[honkhonkpants]

So you believe that adding up all election and/or legislation-influencing activities would reveal that CCPOA is the largest actor in California politics, despite the fact that even in above-board registered lobbying the oil industry spent $22 million last year? I think your claim requires some substantiation.

[trhway]

>CCPOA is the largest actor in California politics

it isn't exactly full order, so you kind of right in questioning my statements at their absolute face value. It is more like partial order here - oil industry and the guards have orthogonal interests. Except for the one aspect - guards consume state budget while oil industry is a source of it. And as we know from the business community whining - CA is considered "not business friendly"/"high tax state". Though of course i don't think the guards and oil clash directly here - the guards' politics is more about redistribution of the budget away from the other categories. I.e the oil and the guards have their own big fields to play, and when it comes to their own fields, the guards have much higher success than oil in their respective fields in CA.

And, man, $22 millions is just a rounding error for either of the players - the CA prison budget is $10B.

If you remember the beginning of Schwarzenegger's time, the first thing he did was taking on the biggest problem of the state - the guards union. He failed. No surprise here given the nature of the task. Still my personal great respect to him - he was the only one who even have ever tried to do it.

[honkhonkpants]

That's a bizarre interpretation of events. Schwarzenegger went along with the prison industry by vigorously opposing Prop. 66 (reforming the three strikes rule) and generally taking a "tough on crime" stance. Prison population increased every year under his administration until a court (and eventually the US Supreme Court) finally ordered the state to reduce it. Schwarzenegger's solution to overcrowding was to ship inmates to other states, which is shock doctrine privatization, not union busting.

Brown has actually reduced the prison population, notably by reforming sentencing laws and reclassifying many crimes as misdemeanors. The California prison population now stands at a level lower than in 1996, and a per-capita level lower than in 1992.