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Prison watchdog wants Schwarzenegger aides to testify under oath

By DON THOMPSON, | Wednesday, Jul 12 2006 4:15 PM

Last Updated: Wednesday, Jul 12 2006 4:15 PM

The watchdog appointed by a federal judge to oversee California prison reforms said Wednesday he wants to force top aides of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to testify under oath in a case that could result in more federal control over the state's deeply troubled corrections system.

John Hagar, the special master who reports to U.S. District Court Judge Thelton Henderson, wants the judge to let him conduct a full investigation into whether the administration has been backsliding on reforms since the first of the year.

At issue is whether Schwarzenegger's top aides have been currying favor with the state's powerful prison guards union to keep it from attacking the governor during his re-election year. Two leaders of the state's corrections department resigned in quick succession earlier this year, complaining that their efforts were being undermined by ties between the union and the administration.

Hagar alleged in a June 21 preliminary report and again during Wednesday's hearing in U.S. District Court that the administration has let the union weaken reform efforts. The criticism stems from Schwarzenegger's appointments of Chief of Staff Susan Kennedy, a Democrat who worked closely with the union when she was an aide to former Gov. Gray Davis, and Cabinet Secretary Fred Aguiar. Both took office in January.

Hagar said Kennedy appears to be "in the pocket" of the California Correctional Peace Officers Association and said union officials have ready access to the governor's office.

"Really what the meetings are all about (is) 'You do a favor for me, I'll do a favor for you,'" Hagar said during Wednesday's hearing. "The governor's cabinet secretary is sort of running errands for the CCPOA president."

Hagar said he will make a formal request of the federal judge to let him conduct the investigation. If he concludes that reforms have stalled, Hagar said he would ask the judge to take more direct control of the prison system.

Schwarzenegger's legal affairs secretary, as well as representatives from the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation and the California Correctional Peace Officers Association denied they were working to undermine reform efforts.

"The fact that we're looking for common ground (with the union) does not mean we're retreating from reform issues," Schwarzenegger Legal Affairs Secretary Andrea Lynn Hoch told Hagar. "The governor believes we will not get prison reform by ignoring the union."

The federal oversight was enacted as part of the settlement of an 11-year-old lawsuit over inmate abuse, employee discipline and what Hagar called a pervasive "code of silence" that protects wrongdoers and punishes whistle blowers within the nation's largest prison system.

The federal judge already has taken control of the system's $1.1 billion-a-year inmate health care system, acting in a separate class-action lawsuit.

As evidence of the union's influence on the administration, Hagar alleged that Aguiar lied to him in an April 20 telephone conversation when the cabinet secretary said acting Corrections Secretary Jeanne Woodford was resigning for family reasons.

In fact, Hagar said, Woodford resigned because she was upset that she was being undermined by union leaders' meetings with Kennedy and Aguiar. Administration officials responded that Woodford's public comments indicated she was resigning for family reasons and said that was the reason she gave to them.