Four years and eleven months after Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger was swept into office in a dramatic recall, the powerful and well-heeled correctional officers' union today will target Schwarzenegger for a recall.
The California Correctional Peace Officers Association will begin the process to recall the Republican governor, a spokesman said today, calling the 2003 recall "a mistake."
"In the history of bad governors, this is the worst governor we've ever had," said Lance Corcoran, a spokesman for the union. The union is collecting the 65 necessary valid signatures to serve Schwarzenegger a notice-of-intent-to-recall. "This is a man who is a poser. That's what he did, that's how he made his living, posing."
Asked if the union was prepared to dedicate the more than $1 million likely necessary to gather the 1,041,530 signatures to qualify a recall for the ballot, Corcoran said, "We are 100 percent committed and we've never been shy about investing in our commitments."
The move comes as California hits the 70th day of the 2008-09 fiscal year without a budget. The standoff is the longest in California history.
California voters recalled ex-Gov. Gray Davis one year after the second-longest budget impasse, the 2002 budget, which lasted until Sept. 5.
The guards union has sparred with the Schwarzenegger administration over multiple issues, most notably prison policies and correctional officers' salaries.
Schwarzenegger suggested that the recall was part of CCPOA's "intimidation tactics" to pressure him into a contract deal.
"I will not be intimidated by anybody that is demanding more money than the state can afford and that demands deals more than the state is wanting to give," Schwarzenegger said. "So the prison guard union is not going to intimidate me with their kind of action."
"This is a different governor sitting here," he added. "I will not get intimidated."
Schwarzenegger said he will not agree to emergency spending measures in place of a budget, as Republicans asked for Monday.
"There will only be a budget," he said. "That's it, OK? The legislators have time today, tomorrow, the next day to pass a budget so that everyone gets paid. But there will be no temporary kind of fix."
Members of the CCPOA have been working without a long-term contract since 2006.
In 2007, state lawmakers tried to pass a pay-raise package for the correctional officers in the waning days of the session, but the governor issued a statement condemning the move as a "backroom deal."
Corcoran, the CCPOA spokesman, insisted the recall "is not about money."
"We recognize that the state is in horrible financial straits," Corcoran added, saying the union would be wiling to put off raises in exchange for improved working conditions. "Our prisons are horribly overcrowded."
Corcoran said the "straw that broke the camel's back" was the governor's executive order this summer to temporarily slash the pay of state workers to the federal minimum wage. The governor did so to conserve cash during the budget impasse.
While some state workers, including the public safety officers of the California Highway Patrol, were exempted en masse, the employees of the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation were not.
"It's gone beyond professional," Corcoran said, "it's gotten to personal."
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