If the chorus of complaints from California's cities about the realignment is any indication, Batts might well have decided to cut his losses. Yes, the mayors of the Golden State's largest cities are very unhappy about the realignment; in a letter to Jerry Brown, the leaders of LA, San Francisco, San Diego, San Jose, and five other cities claimed that the state is facing a "brewing public safety crisis" if it doesn't give them more money to handle the new prisoners. Noted grandstander Antonio Villaraigosa even referred to the plan as "political malpractice" last week. Essentially, the cities want an immediate infusion of guaranteed money to cover their realignment-related costs, and want a November 2012 ballot initiative to constitutionally guarantee the money thereafter.
We can't imagine running big-city police departments is an easy job, and it will only get harder if, like Los Angeles, they're forced to move officers over to help probation departments supervise newly released offenders. Still, it's hard to avoid the sense that the mayors doth protest too much. After all, local governments had months to weigh in on the plan before it was passed; one has to wonder why they weren't raising concerns then. Granted, that was before Sacramento raided cities' vehicle license money to the tune of $130 million to pay for the realignment. But still, they had to know that the plan would impose costs on them. We suspect that the complaints are about appearances. It's hardly a secret that the political class in California wants budget cuts to be as painful and frightening as possible, so as to wear down voters' resistance to new taxes. It remains to be seen whether realignment will create a crisis of safety in California's cities, but we'd guess that none of these folks wants to see a good crisis go to waste. Brown did, after all, promise to get them the money one way or the other.
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