Where the unions do what the Washington State Republicans will not.
Back in February, I participated in a couple of conference calls with the Washington State Republican Legislators and their Communications Director, John Rothlin. One of the topics that was hot at the time was the State’s refusal to accpet that they needed to build more prisons and the Secretary of the Dept. of Corrections ineptitude in keeping those under his charge (aka: every single prisoner in the state) where they belong (aka: In Prison).
Basically, there are policies in place where the state is releasing prisoners very early due to lack of space to keep them because the state officials refuse to build any new prison space. We’re not just talking non-violent misdemeanors here. King County released 83 violent felons and child molesters a few months back due to lack of space, all of which was approved by the DOC offices.
In one of these conference calls I proposed that the Republicans put on a very short hold their proposed legislation called “Families Before Felons”, and demand answers from the DOC officials via the Governor, and pending the usual stonewalling that they’d been getting directly from the DOC pukes, stand and have an actual No Confidence vote on the DOC Secretary.
Needless to say, I wasn’t listened to, the Republican legislation went down in flames, and nothing has changed.
Until now.
The state correctional officer’s union is fed up with the overcrowding and the lack of thought being put into holding prisoners as prisoners instead of treating the corrections system like a daycare and is thinking of holding a vote of No Confidence on DOC Secretary, Harold Clarke.
I wish them all the success I had hoped the Repubs would have gotten.
Ya know, it’s a Lefty thing to believe that we should be comfortable living with social deviants (criminals). However, when you DO transplant a lefty into a nest of thieves, and said lefty gets ripped off, they are first to complain about their personal lack of security.
However, if the cop making the arrest of the thief who ripped them off does so in a slightly politically-incorrect manner, that same lefty will be the first to scream “police brutality”.
Leftys: ya can’t live with them, but we sure could live without tham….get a rope.
Just a thought, If prison wasn’t such a nice place to go don’t you think there would be less people wanting to go to prison? Just a thought. If we made it a little more like Hell maybe there would be less repeat offenders.
You know, I never understood why the Dems are so against building more prisons. It would seem to me that doing so would be a way to expand their power and fundraising base, and in a way that the Repubs would cooperate with whole-heartedly.
It would expand the Dems power and fundraising base because, even before the unConstitutional (violation of freedom of association) ‘join the union or get fired’ contract rule for state employees, the DOC was the most heavily unionized part of the state workforce, except maybe the teachers. So it would follow that more prisons = more corrections officers = bigger COs union.
And unions, as we all know, overwhelmingly support the Dems, at least at the organizational level.