AB 900, pulled together after months of discussions among the 4 leaders and many others, passes today by a vote of 70-1. This was a "between a rock and a hard place" decision for all of us under the ultimate specter of unacceptable wholesale early releases of criminals by the federal judge because of the courts’ view of overcrowding. This carried the most weight for Republicans, as our caucus believes that public safety is our duty and first obligation to the people of California. It provides for, via $7.4 billion in bonds, the building of 53,000 new spaces and for the expansion of the "pipeline" to train the personnel needed to staff the currently understaffed spaces and new spaces to be built. Much will need to be done in the coming months to make this work with regard to recruiting the staff and building the new spaces needed in correlation with each other.
As our population increases by a million in this state every 2 years, many of us have realized for years that we’ve needed to keep up with these prison space needs. Instead, unfortunately, our reality is crisis-management instead of long-term planning for our states infrastructure future.