Tuesday, August 3, 2010
Perata Stays on Prison Guard’s Payroll
Politics / People / Law Enforcement & Crime Robert Gammon — Tue, Aug 3, 2010 at 2:51 PM
Ex-state Senator Don Perata apparently does not believe that his close association with the California prison guards’ union will harm his chances with progressive Oakland voters in this year’s mayoral race. According to newly filed campaign finance reports, the powerful prison guards' union paid Perata another $60,000 from April through June of this year. Perata has now pocketed nearly $409,000 from the prison guards' union since being termed out of the Senate in January 2009.
It’s never been clear exactly what Perata has done to earn so much money. The prison guards' union reports on its campaign finance reports filed with the California Secretary of State’s Office that Perata is one of their “campaign consultants.” However, the union has mounted no political campaigns since hiring his consulting company, Perata Consulting. During his time as leader of the state Senate, Perata helped protect the prison guards' union from budget cuts. The prison guard’s union also is Perata Consulting’s only political campaign client.
The latest $60,000 payment from the prison guards' union to Perata also coincided with the union’s decision to finance two hit-piece mailers that blanketed Oakland mailboxes attacking the ex-senator’s two main rivals for mayor — Councilwomen Jean Quan and Rebecca Kaplan. The union funneled its payments for the mailers through a shadowy Sacramento political committee that has close ties to Perata.
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Read what the San Francisco Chronicle, a REAL newspaper, has to say about Don Perata: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?…
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Perata recently wrote a blog post in which he railed against early parole for non-violent drug offenders.
California has a prison system that's desperately overcrowded, and that tries to keep people in jail for way too long over petty drug offenses and other insane mandatory sentences.
Of course, the Prison Guard's Union gets paid more and gets more job opportunities for every Californian who stays in jail, whether or not that person deserves to stay in jail.
Do we want a Mayor of Oakland who's been paid $409,000 to suck up to Prison Guards who profit on the misery of the prison industrial complex?
And let's not forget that the Prison Guards also fought tooth and nail during California state budget negotiations to keep their salaries high, even though they were helping to push the state towards financial melt down. Did Don Perata get paid to help them do that?
