Orange County Register

In this fourth installment of my Q&A with GOP gubernatorial candidate Tom Campbell, he discusses his support for a constitutional convention, the need to place restrictions on ballot box budget, his proposal to address the state’s prison overcrowding by sending some inmates to facilities in other states, and the influence of the prison guards union.

In Part 1, he addressed taxes and the economy. In Part 2, he explained the need for small K-12 class sizes and outline his tuition plan to allow more students to attend the state’s public colleges. In Part 3, he outlined his plan to bring more jobs to California.

In Part 5, he outlines his plan for addressing illegal immigration, including having the state help bolster the border fence and sending the National Guard to help patrol the border. In Part 6, the finale, he explains his plan for providing health care to California’s uninsured, and why education needs a bigger proponent in the governor’s post.

If you don’t already see this installment below, click on the prompt. At the bottom of this entry are links to several other interviews I’ve done with the gubernatorial candidates.

There’s been plenty of talk about a constitutional convention and what those delegates could recommend for the state. Depending on how they do it, it sounds like it could be great for the long-term health of California. Do you think that’s the best way to address some of these problems?

Yes, I favor the constitutional convention. The needs are great. For instance, we should to restore the Gann limit that we used to have, that constrains spending to last year’s plus the rate of inflation and the growth of population, no more.

If we can put that into the constitution as we had it for 10 years … had we done that, we would not have the budget problem we have today. If you calculate our expenditures back in ’98, 99, moving forward by that amount, we would have a balanced budget today.

I see a need even more fundamentally so that you collect taxes one year, let them earn interest, and don’t spend them until the next. That way, you know exactly how much money you have. The budget deficit is caused by the Legislature being over-optimistic about revenues are going to be. They budget on the basis of expectation, not real numbers. I’m very much of a real numbers person.

Those changes, I believe, would be best and most permanently achieved through a constitutional change. They might be achievable through an initiative.

To the extent I would focus on what could only be done through a constitutional convention, I’d emphasis one other and that is the initiative process. It allows an individual or group to put on the ballot something that will cost us, without specifying where the money comes from. That has to change.

So I would like to see a constitutional convention say that if you put an initiative forward, it has to pay for itself specifically. Not in vague generalities. You can’t just say, “We’ll eliminate waste, fraud and abuse.” What tax will you increase? What expenditure will you cut to pay for what you propose?

I believe it would be difficult to get that through as an initiative because the court would consider that what’s called a revision, which you cannot do by initiative.

One of the big issues with a constitutional convention is how you select a competent, intelligent, unbiased collection of delegates who are not influenced by special interests.

The proposal that the Bay Area Council is supporting, which is the one I have the most familiarity with, has citizens chosen randomly. They must agree to serve, they must not be in public office or seeking public office. But they’re informed by a committee which is charged with taking recommendations from a very broad spectrum of sources, including good government organizations like California Forward.

So I don’t doubt for a moment that a commission of average citizens will have plenty of good ideas to consider.

You said unbiased. The proposal is to choose people who are not in office, who are not running for office, who are not overtly partisan. I don’t what more you can do.

Lastly, we control the process at the end because we vote “Yes” or “No” on the outcome.

How should the state address the prison crisis?

I’m in favor of outsourcing prisoners. The average prisoner cost California $47,000. The average in the country is under $30,000. There are states with excess capacity. I would encourage us to enter into agreement with those states.

It does not violate any constitutional rule. It would diminish overcrowding. And it would save us money.

How do we accomplish that?

We came close. We were in discussions with Michigan. It fell through but I think it could be revived. It’s the governor’s responsibility to negotiate with the governors of other states. It is quite achievable in my view.

Does the prison guards union wield undue influence over the Legislature?

They wield a lot of influence. I’ll answer your question, but first I want to mention illegal immigrants in prison. This is federal. I can’t do this as governor. But the president should negotiate with other countries that prisoners in American prisons who are here illegal serve their prison time in the country of origin. I’m not saying that’s going to happen quickly, but the president should be in charge of doing something.

Back to the prison guards union. They’re very powerful. I was in the state Senate, as you know, and I served on the judiciary committee and the subcommittee on prisons, deciding whether we should be building more prisons and if so, what alternatives would lower costs. And the prison guards union was strongly influential for the highest cost options. And they had a strong degree of influence.

It’s also been said that the union unduly encouraged more and longer prison sentences than serves a practical purpose.

I might broaden your question to a bit to say that the public policy issue is a real one. Whether the prison guards union was the reason for going down the path we did or not, I favor the commission that’s been recommended by the Legislature this session to review our standards and rules for incarceration. The key to me is that prison, with its high cost particularly, should be for violent criminals and those who violate the terms of parole… predominantly. Predominantly, not necessarily exclusively.

We should try to get community involvement as prisoners are released by use of electronic monitoring and community work, like cleaning up graffiti and cleaning up the freeways while you’re also trying to get a paying job, so the transition is more effective. That’s a position that’s favored by very, very many who are expert in the field.

Click here for my Q&A with GOP candidate Steve Poizner
Click here to read my Q&A with Democratic gubernatorial hopeful and San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom.
Click here to see my interview with Meg Whitman. Click here to read about her Tustin town hall in May.
Click here to read my short chat in April with Tom Campbell and coverage of his Irvine event in April.
Click here to read my interview with Steve Poizner at last year’s GOP convention in Minnesota. Click here to read about his Irvine town hall in March.

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