Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, California Department of Corrections Director Matthew Cate and state Finance Director Mike Genest today announced that California Attorney General Jerry Brown has filed a motion in federal district court in San Francisco to replace the federally appointed receiver.

Brown, on behalf of the state, seeks instead a special master who would be an expert appointed by the federal court to advise the state and the court. His motion also asks the court to establish a process during the transition to ensure the receiver's compliance with state and federal law and to terminate the receiver's construction plan.

Receiver J. Clark Kelso, who was appointed by U.S. District Judge Thelton E. Henderson of San Francisco, has outlined an $8 billion project includes construction of seven new health care facilities with 10,000 new beds for acute and long-term needs. The plan would also improve physical and mental health care facilities at each of the 33 adult prisons.

The state argues that $8 billion isn't required to bring the prison system up to constitutional standards of health care. The state also has argued that courts do not have the authority to order prison construction without the state's consent, "and the state cannot consent to the receiver's massive $8 billion" plan.

Attorneys for Kelso have argued that the governor and his staff repeatedly agreed with the receiver's plan to build as many as seven long-term health care facilities for chronically sick, aged, injured and mentally ill inmates.

Henderson in October ordered Schwarzenegger and Controller John Chiang to transfer $250 million to Kelso as a down payment on the construction project or risk being held in contempt.

However, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals issued an emergency stay and scheduled a hearing next month on whether the judge exceeded his authority.

In a prepared statement today, Schwarzenegger said, "Over the last three years, my administration has worked with the courts and both receivers to improve healthcare in our prisons.

"However, the receiver has just gone too far over the last several months, especially considering the economic realities of these times," the statement continued. "With an $8 billion price tag for a construction plan that includes yoga rooms and landscaped courtyards, it's clear that the receiver has lost site of his lawful charge to bring prison healthcare up to a constitutionally adequate level of care. It's time to return responsibility to the state - where it belongs - and where there is accountability to the people of California."

Brown, in a prepared statement this morning, said, "The courts should terminate this unaccountable prison receivership and its $8 billion construction plan, restoring a dose of fiscal reality to the provision of inmate medical care in California. The federal receivership has turned into its own autonomous government, operating outside the normal checks and balances of federal law."

Brown, Cate and Genest appeared this morning at a press conference at the State Capitol. Even before the news conference commenced, Kelso responded to reports on the Internet of the state's motion with a broadside aimed at Brown and Schwarzenegger.

"This is just another transparent attempt by a career politician to grab headlines," the receiver said in a prepared statement. "The attorney general should stop wasting taxpayers' money filing meritless motions, stop abusing his position to further his 2010 gubernatorial campaign, and start seeking a real solution to the inhumane and unconstitutional prison conditions that threaten the public's health and safety.

"Confronted with the consequences of their own mismanagement of the state's prison system, the governor and attorney general are desperate to deflect attention away from their conspicuous lack of stable leadership," Kelson charged.