Guards Union Spreads Its Wealth

SACRAMENTO — Don Novey, the fedora-wearing mastermind behind the 20-year rise of California’s prison guards union, has a special way of recognizing some lawmakers on their birthdays.

When John Burton turned 70 in 2002, Novey wrote the Senate leader’s age, followed by three zeros, on a campaign check.

Earlier that year, the San Francisco Democrat rushed through the Legislature a contract giving the prison guards richer retirement and health benefits, easier access to sick leave and overtime and what could be a 37% pay increase over its five-year life.

State Sen. Sheila Kuehl (D-Santa Monica) received $59,000 on her 59th birthday. She has provided a loyal vote for the union.

Through its campaign committees, the California Correctional Peace Officers Assn. has spent $4.8 million directly and indirectly on current and incoming lawmakers since 1994, state records show. It has given money to 100 of the 120 sitting legislators, Republican and Democrat alike. Twenty-five of them have accepted $50,000 or more.

The union has helped Burton and Democrats by giving him $918,231 in direct and indirect contributions since 1994, almost all of it during his tenure as Senate leader.

“We support candidates who are willing to listen to our issues,” said Lance Corcoran, the union’s executive vice president. “We believe ... it is a worthwhile endeavor to help those who listen to us win elective office.”

The prison officers’ organization is not the largest state employee union, and some interest groups spend more on politics. But no player has wielded more influence in the Capitol during the last decade. It has mixed fat campaign checks, bare-knuckle electioneering, smart alliances and shrewd marketing to shape state law.

Nowhere has the group’s pull been more apparent than in the Legislature. The threat of the union’s campaign wrath has persuaded some not to tangle with it. Others come to rely on the union’s largess. A few, like Burton -- the most powerful lawmaker in town -- become friends.

Thirty-eight veteran lawmakers have voted for every union-sponsored bill to come before them that has become law, according to a review of nearly 40 measures dating to 1994. Twenty-five others either have abstained on occasion or cast no more than a single no vote on those bills. Only one veteran legislator, state Sen. Tom McClintock (R-Thousand Oaks), has voted no more often than he has supported guards’ bills.

Despite its decadelong winning streak, however, these are unsettled times for the union. Seventeen Democratic senators -- not including Burton -- vowed Tuesday that they would not approve a scheduled 11.3% pay raise for the guards at a cost to taxpayers of $200 million. And they demanded that the union renegotiate its contract, fashioned by Gov. Gray Davis and ratified by the Legislature. Fourteen of the senators voted for the contract; three abstained.

For the first time since the guards spent $1 million to help elect Gov. Pete Wilson in 1990, they are dealing with a governor who, at least from appearances, is not an ally.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has repeatedly said he would refuse campaign money from public employee unions, and he has called on union members to accept $300 million in concessions to help close the state’s budget gap.

Federal authorities are looking into charges of inmate abuse and other wrongdoing by prison officers and officials. And although Novey still runs its political action committee, he has ceded the union’s presidency to Mike Jimenez. Jimenez, who like Novey declined to be interviewed for this article, lacks the relationships with lawmakers that Novey has cultivated.

Meanwhile, the union’s leaders and lobbyists have been engaged in quiet talks about accepting some concessions. But the issue is far from resolved.

Union official Corcoran said Tuesday’s move, led by state Sen. Jackie Speier (D-Hillsborough), would set talks back, largely because the union felt it was being bullied by legislators.

“In the prison system, if you give in to a bully, you’re a punk,” Corcoran said. The guards union “has never been a punk. I can’t say it any more clearly than that.”

“They will retaliate,” said former state Sen. Tom Hayden, who often battled the union during his tenure in Sacramento. “But they may have too elevated a sense of themselves.”

The union has been down before. In the 1990s, lawmakers investigated shootings and inmate abuse at Corcoran State Prison in the San Joaquin Valley. In Wilson’s final year in office -- 1998 -- he and legislators approved a contract granting officers an 11% raise, more than that for any other state employee union.

The union’s legislative success began with its political bank accounts, fed by a portion of the $22 million in annual dues paid by its 31,000 members. It has spent at least $14 million overall on state campaigns in the last decade, although an exact figure is difficult to ascertain.

The organization controls at least seven state and federal political action committees, and leverages its money by striking alliances with other donors. The union is particularly close to the Pechanga Band of Luiseno Indians, which owns a bustling casino in Temecula and was the largest spender on state politics in 2003, at $6.6 million.

In 1988, when Pechanga Chairman Mark Macarro was a teenager and the union was not yet a major political force, his father, Leslie, was a California Youth Authority officer. When a delinquent fled from a jail bus at County-USC Medical Center in Los Angeles, Officer Macarro gave chase. A car struck him, and he died. The union used its widows and orphans fund to help the family cover its bills.

A decade later, as the tribe’s gambling profits ballooned, Novey and Macarro created the Native American and Peace Officers Political Action Committee. Since then, the committee has spent $2.37 million on political races.

The union does not win each contest it enters. But even candidates who survive union attacks have little desire to tangle with the group a second time, and every legislator can cite careers the union has ended.

“They will hugely fund an opponent and take you out,” said a Democratic assemblyman who would not speak publicly, even though the union had not challenged him.

Whether or not he knew it at the time, Phil Wyman’s legislative career ended in 2001 when he testified before a Senate committee against a bill by Sen. Gloria Romero (D-Los Angeles) to limit private prisons.

Union leaders say they oppose private lockups because they believe that incarceration is fundamentally a government function. Private prison advocates contend that union officials view private lockups as a threat to their jobs. But Romero’s bill would have extended restrictions on private prison companies imposed by a previous bill.

Wyman’s high desert district included a private prison in California City that employs 500 people, and the Republican assemblyman viewed the issue as one of jobs. But to the union, Wyman had stepped over the line, and Novey confronted him after the hearing.

California City Mayor Larry Adams, who had come to Sacramento to support Wyman, recalled that Novey told the assemblyman: “We’ll see that you don’t get reelected.”

Wyman declined to discuss the incident or its aftermath. But in 2001, after a redistricting, he lost a primary election fight against Republican Sharon Runner, who was campaigning to succeed her husband, then-Assemblyman George Runner.

The union paid for $209,000 in mailers, featuring broadsides against Wyman, that arrived at voters’ homes just before the election. Runner won easily.

“It makes you wince,” George Runner said. “Wow. They really didn’t like Phil.”

The union has taken a major role in electing four sitting Assembly members, including Sharon Runner and Rudy Bermudez (D-Norwalk), a former state parole officer and member of the guards union. It backed four other candidates who are considered sure to win seats in November.

“When you come in big, sure, it has an impact,” union official Corcoran said. “It certainly makes it difficult for the other side.”

*

No lawmaker is closer to the union than Burton. He must leave office this year because of term limits but has spent four decades in and out of the Legislature and Congress, and has shown the skill and power to derail any bill. Whether he can prevail on the labor contract remains to be seen.

Burton and Novey, a former Folsom prison guard who took over as union president in 1980, are avid readers who swap books, one-up each other about sports trivia and are political junkies who talk with authority about electoral esoterica.

Novey “is one of the more interesting guys in the Capitol,” Burton said.

Their bond has served them well. Through the Senate Rules Committee, which he chairs, Burton appointed Novey to one of the upper house’s few plum posts that pays a salary, the Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board. Members receive $114,180 a year. The board meets once a month.

During the six years that he has been Senate president pro tem, Burton has shepherded through the Legislature six guards-sponsored bills that became law, more than any other legislator. Since 1998, he has carried bills implementing three of the union’s labor contracts. He has voted against a union-sponsored bill that became law just once since 1994, and has abstained only once since becoming Senate leader.

In a recent interview, Burton said that even though he carried the bill ratifying the guards’ labor contract in 2002, he was not aware of the details and cost. Though he might not have negotiated such a rich deal himself, Burton said, he is a lifelong union advocate. “It is difficult to fault a union for getting whatever contract it can get,” he said.

The guards union represents “working men and women who have kind of a [difficult] job,” Burton said. That they may have “a small percentage of bad people doesn’t influence my thinking as far as wages, working conditions and benefits” are concerned.

Kuehl is another union favorite, although -- unlike Burton -- she was one of the 17 senators to call for the labor contract to be renegotiated.

“Sheila Kuehl is a dynamo,” union official Corcoran said. “She is a solid legislator, one of the most intelligent people I’ve ever met.”

Kuehl is a Harvard-educated attorney whose office wall plaques include ones given her by the American Civil Liberties Union. She opposes the death penalty, supports abortion rights and has been a leader in pushing for gay rights.

In 1999, as she prepared to run for her Senate seat against Assemblyman Wally Knox, a labor lawyer who had chaired the Assembly labor committee, Kuehl successfully carried a guards-sponsored bill to restrict private prisons.

In 2000, she trounced Knox in the primary, tantamount to victory in her heavily Democratic district on the Westside of Los Angeles. That was also the year Novey gave Kuehl one of his coveted birthday checks. Altogether, the union has given her $95,000.

“I don’t care if they are prison guards or janitors,” Kuehl said. “I believe people ought to be able to organize to improve their working conditions.”

The union’s successes have crossed party lines. The group also embraces some conservative lawmakers, such as Sen. Jim Battin (R-La Quinta).

Through various committees, the union has donated at least $165,000 to Battin. The union and the Pechanga-guard PAC spent more than $210,000 to help elect one of Battin’s aides, Assemblywoman Bonnie Garcia (R-Cathedral City).

Battin votes against state budgets and tax hikes. But he has voted for all but one union-sponsored bill since joining the Legislature after the 1994 election.

In an indication of the union’s influence across party lines: Republican legislators generally oppose bills benefiting unions but have voted for the last four guards contracts by a combined 165 to 7, with 18 not voting. That works out to an 87% approval rate for the contracts.

Democrats have virtually the same record, supporting the contracts 249 to 3, with 32 abstentions, or 88% in favor.

*

Money is not the only way to reach politicians. As part of its marketing effort, the union has expanded its influence by nurturing the crime victims movement. The union was an early donor to the 1994 ballot initiative that created the state’s three-strikes sentencing law. It also funds Crime Victims United and the Doris Tate Crime Victims Bureau.

“It wouldn’t be here without” the guards union, Hariet Salarno, the mother of a murdered child, said of Crime Victims United, which she directs. “Victims have no money. They’re broke. Their lives are destroyed.”

With union help, thousands of survivors rally each April in Sacramento’s Capitol Park. Legislators give speeches, as does the union president. Crime Victims United uses the opportunity to hold a fund-raising dinner, attended by leaders of the guards union. Schwarzenegger and his wife, Maria Shriver, were among the guests at this year’s dinner.

*

California has 21 state employee unions. If they get scheduled raises July 1, members in 19 of those unions will have received pay increases of 13% to 18.5% since 1998, a state Department of Personnel Administration analysis shows.

The guards’ cumulative raise, including a scheduled 11.3% jump in July, would be 31.1%. Only one other group, California Highway Patrol officers, comes close at 29.8%, the analysis shows.

The power of the correctional officers union has grown as the ranks of guards -- and inmates -- have expanded. Two decades ago, there were 12 prisons, 34,700 inmates and 6,000 guards. Now, there are 32 prisons, 160,000 prisoners and 31,000 union members.

By 2006, when the current contract expires, veteran correctional officers would earn more than $73,000 unless Schwarzenegger and the Legislature extracted some concessions.

“We are not politically powerful; we’re politically successful,” said Corcoran, the union vice president. “ ‘Power’ implies abuse. I prefer ‘successful.’ ”

*

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

Union contributions

The prison guards union has donated at least $4.8 million to legislators since 1994. These are some of the largest recipients -- and three who received little or nothing. Also shown are their voting records on bills sponsored by the union that have become law since 1994. The final column indicates how each voted on the current union contract.

*--* Legislator Donations Voting record Union Total Yes No Abst. contract Sen. John Burton (D-San Francisco) $918,231 38 32 1 5 Yes Sen. Jim Brulte (R-Rancho Cucamonga) $317,240 38 32 2 4 Abst. Sen. Tom Torlakson (D-Antioch) $220,500** 24 23 0 1 Yes Assemblywoman Bonnie Garcia (R-Cath. City) $210,894 1 1 0 0 N/O Assemblywoman Sharon Runner (R-Lancaster) $209,147 1 1 0 0 N/O Elaine Alquist (D-San Jose)* $192,193 23 23 0 0 Yes Sen. Bob Margett (R-Arcadia) $178,000** 28 25 3 0 Yes Sen. Jim Battin (R-La Quinta) $165,200 28 27 1 0 Yes Assemblyman Joe Simitian (D-Palo Alto) $158,960 6 5 1 0 Yes Assemblywoman Barbara Matthews (D-Tracy) $117,000 6 6 0 0 Yes Carole Migden (D-San Francisco)* $104,000 26 22 3 1 Yes Sen. Dede Alpert (D-San Diego) $101,500** 38 36 0 2 Yes Sen. Sheila Kuehl (D-Santa Monica) $95,000 28 25 1 2 Yes Sen. Jack Scott (D-Altadena) $92,000** 26 26 0 0 Yes Sen. Don Perata (D-Oakland) $86,900 24 23 0 1 Yes Sen. John Vasconcellos (D-Santa Clara) $1,500 38 28 0 10 Abst. Sen. Jackie Speier (D-Hillsborough) $1,000 34 28 1 5 Yes Sen. Tom McClintock (R-Thousand Oaks) $0 24 8 13 3 No

*--*

N/O = Not in Office

* These former legislators are seeking Senate seats this year.

** Combined donations from the California Correctional Peace Officers Assn. and the Native American and Peace Officers Political Action Committee

Sources: Secretary of state’s office, www.ccpoa.com, www.sen.ca.gov, Graphics reporting by Dan Morain, Times staff writer