The Brief

A year after he took the top job in 2019, the president of one of California’s largest and most powerful unions said in a newsletter that he wanted to be “the 800 pound gorilla” in Sacramento politics.

Since then, the California Correctional Peace Officers Association, the union known as CCPOA representing 26,000 state prison guards, has spent and spent, in a way it never did before. Its biggest recipient: Gov. Gavin Newsom, who has taken $2.9 million from the union since he was elected governor.

That’s 31% of all political spending by the union since 2001.

The union under President Glen Stailey gave $1.75 million to Newsom’s anti-recall campaign in 2021 – the largest single contribution to that effort – and another $1 million to support Proposition 1, Newsom’s treatment and housing plan for people experiencing serious mental illness, which passed by the narrowest of margins this year.

That’s a noted contrast to the union’s relationship with the three governors who preceded Newsom, especially former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who fought the union’s proposed raises and was the target of an aborted recall campaign launched by the union.

CCPOA has contributed more than $9.3 million to political campaigns in the last 20 years

Prior to the Newsom administration, the prison union’s biggest political expense came in 2005, when it joined other labor organizations in fighting a package of ballot measures sponsored by Schwarzenegger that would have curbed state spending and weakened public employee unions. The unions won, dealing Schwarzenegger a major defeat.

Campaign finance records show the union largely stayed out of political fights during former Gov. Jerry Brown’s administration. It avoided the ballot measures that lowered criminal sentences for nonviolent crimes and gave inmates more opportunities for parole — propositions that voters passed and that contributed to declining headcounts in state prisons.

Then Newsom took office, and the union’s pocketbook opened wide.

There are two ways to look at that spending, according to interviews with legislators, labor leaders, former prison officials and budget watchdogs.

In one, it’s a naked display of power: one of the richest unions in a labor-friendly state reminding its top politicians that it can spend with them — or against them. That’s primarily the view from outside the Capitol.

In the other view, from inside the Capitol, it’s a reflection of the union’s anxiety in the face of waning influence as California’s future almost certainly includes fewer prisons and fewer union-represented prison guards to staff them. The numbers don’t lie: California is housing 70,000 fewer inmates in state prisons than it did in 2011.

At the outset of his first term, Newsom floated the idea of closing a single state prison. He’s since closed three and canceled a contract on another private prison, collectively saving hundreds of millions of dollars. But facing a budget deficit and 4,000 fewer inmates projected to be in prison by the end of his term in 2026, Newsom demurred this year from shutting down another institution.

In a year of budget scarcity, when each inmate costs about $132,000 to house annually and the Legislative Analyst’s Office has said the state has space to close five more prisons, Newsom has been stubborn about keeping prisons open. He has said he wants to keep some additional capacity in the system, and that he wants to build up rehabilitative programs that can help inmates reintegrate into society.

Izzy Gardon, a spokesperson for Newsom, in a written statement said the governor has tried to balance potential budget savings with public safety needs inside prisons.

“Saving taxpayers billions of dollars without impacting public safety, Gov. Newsom has closed more prisons than any of his predecessors,” he wrote. “The governor’s decisions have been based exclusively on meeting the evolving needs of our criminal justice system, in a manner that maximizes public safety and the judicious use of taxpayer dollars.

Nathan Ballard, an adviser to the union and a longtime Newsom ally, said in written responses to questions from CalMatters that the union and the governor had “respectful and substantive” discussions about potential prison closures this budget cycle.

“Union leaders clearly aired their views and listened very carefully to the administration’s priorities,” Ballard said. “The governor made it known that he valued the union’s input. Ultimately, Gov. Newsom’s process is his own, and it would be irresponsible to speculate about how he arrives at any particular decision.”

The millions of dollars the union shoveled into Newsom’s most significant projects were a reflection of the union’s priorities, he said.

“When the union and the governor are in alignment policy-wise, as they were during Proposition 1, the CCPOA does not hesitate to fight hard for the governor’s initiatives,” he said.

“Even while grappling with policy areas where they are less aligned, there is a strong commitment to finding areas of agreement and progress.”

CCPOA's big contracts in Newsom years

Spending lots of money to support the most powerful executive in the state is perhaps not surprising. So what happens to the politicians who cross the prison guard union?

When the union wanted to get rid of John Moorlach, a Republican state senator who was questioning pension benefits for California public employees, it spent more than $1 million against him in his Orange County race. Then the flyers started popping up, sponsored by the union, tying the Never Trumper senator to the policies and personal predilections of Donald Trump.

“It was cartoonish,” said Lance Christensen, Moorloch’s campaign manager in that 2020 race. “You would think that the public safety unions whose job it is to serve and defend and protect Californians would want a guy like John Moorlach, who was law and order and supportive generally of public safety programs.”

Former Sen. John Moorlach lost his reelection campaign in 2020. The California Correctional Peace Officers Association, or CCPOA, spent heavily against him. The Republican lawmaker had carried legislation that would have allowed public employees to choose 401(k) plans instead pensions.

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The prison guard union has spent $3.8 million across 32 state legislative races in this century – $1.2 million of that was spent to defeat Moorlach. He lost to Democrat Dave Min, 51%-49%.

“They decided that it was time to go hammer and tong after him, and take him out,” Christensen said.

The union, which represents about 10% of all state workers, has undoubtedly gotten good deals for its members, arguably none more so than last year, when it negotiated a $1 billion raise over three years. Correctional officers also got a new state-funded retirement perk out of the deal, in addition to their California Public Employees’ Retirement System pensions. And when the state mandated COVID-19 vaccinations for state employees, prison guards were permitted to skip them.

That spending has consistently come under fire from the Legislative Analyst’s Office, which found in 2019 and 2021 that the Newsom administration offered “no evidence to justify (a) pay increase” in an unusually harsh analysis of proposed prison guard raises.

The analysis found that California prison guards have neither a recruitment nor a retention problem, and that their salaries were already in line with the salaries in the counties where they work – if not more than 5% higher than comparable job classifications.

Last year, the Legislative Analyst’s Office excoriated Newsom’s administration for repeatedly refusing to make public a 2018 compensation study on prison guard salaries and benefits. The administration regularly publishes compensation studies regarding its 18 other employee bargaining units.

Instead, the administration provided a 2022 compensation study, which the Legislative Analyst’s Office called “flawed” for its failure to account for overtime pay and its selection of large, metropolitan counties as pay comparison points rather than the rural areas where most prison guards work.

“The study is flawed to the point that it is not helpful in meeting its stated objective and we recommend policymakers not use it to assess whether the state’s compensation package for correctional officers is appropriate to attract and retain qualified workers,” according to the Legislative Analyst’s Office.

Those raises, said Brian Kaneda, deputy director for Californians United for a Responsible Budget, put the state’s budget crisis in sharper relief.

“The CCPOA has a stranglehold on Sacramento politics,” Kaneda said. “Everyone’s struggling right now, but prison guards are getting a $1 billion raise. Explain how this could possibly be the right move for California as we tussle with this historic budget deficit.”

When asked to gauge the union’s influence in Sacramento and the diverging views on its power, Ballard said union leadership concentrates on its members more than its lobby.

“The union’s leaders are focused on matters of character, not reputation,” he said. “The CCPOA’s leaders are street-smart correctional officers who have worked in very tough conditions for decades, and as a group they are not terribly concerned with perceived status.”

Is CCPOA a factor in Newsom's prison closures?

Newsom began identifying prisons to close in 2020. More followed in 2022. Then, Newsom stopped naming additional prisons to close even though they have thousands of empty beds.

What changed? For one, people’s perception of crime spiked in the pandemic — though the kind of crimes that would merit prison time mostly went down.

For a governor who perhaps has ambitions beyond Sacramento, that’s important, said one Democratic legislator who did not want their name used for fear of retaliation by both the governor’s office and the prison guard union.

“I don’t think the CCPOA is the reason we’ve stalled on prison closures,” said the legislator. “I think it’s the governor himself or someone in the governor’s office protecting (the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation).

“My presumption is the governor is moderating his views on public safety because of where he wants to go nationally. And so he’s super careful about any perception of being soft on crime.”

Gov. Gavin Newsom speaks at San Quentin State Prison announcing that the facility will be transformed to focus on training and rehabilitation on March 17, 2023.

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In its heyday during the prison building boom of the 1990s and 2000s, the prison guard union would never have had to account for such calculations, said former Corrections Secretary Matt Cate. Back then, both parties had incentives to make nice with the union.

“At the time, the Democrats were more moderate than they are now and they were doing everything to support labor generally,” said Cate, who was appointed corrections secretary in 2008 by Schwarzenegger and stayed for two years under Brown, leaving the office in 2011. “Meanwhile, Republicans were staunchly in favor of law enforcement and long sentences because they didn’t believe in rehabilitation and re-entry.

“So CCPOA had an open field. It was just a much easier job than what the CCPOA faces today. It’s not as easy today to be an 800-pound gorilla as it would have been 20 years ago.”

Cate doubts the union is the sole reason, or even the main reason, that Newsom stopped designating prisons for closure. Closing a prison is like closing “a small city,” Cate said, with 3,000 inmates and 800-1,000 employees represented by a dozen or more different unions. The prison system’s health care is managed by a federal monitor, and another federal monitor oversees the state’s prison mental health care.

Taking on a Democrat, and losing

One legislator who crossed the prison union and whose career survived was Assemblymember Reggie Jones-Sawyer, a Los Angeles Democrat, who said the sharp-elbowed tactics employed by the union under Stailey, its president, were reflective of the union’s approach in the 1990s, a time when the union’s power was at its height.

“If they sneezed,” he said, “people got a cold.”

In 2020, Jones-Sawyer fell into their crosshairs, literally.

The union ran an online ad against Jones-Sawyer that showed Stailey pointing at a wall of photos of legislators. Over Jones-Sawyer’s photo was a piece of white paper with crosshairs and a red dot. Jones-Sawyer took that as a threat, and the union pledged to pull the ad down and re-edit it.

“It became clear that if they wanted to get back the power, they needed to take somebody out to put the fear into everybody,” said Jones-Sawyer, who won re-election that year. “They thought I was an easy target to take out. They learned that was not the case.”

A finger belonging to California Correctional Peace Officers Association president Glen Stailey points at a bullseye taped over the official portrait of Democratic Assemblyman Reggie Jones-Sawyer in a Facebook video produced by the association.

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Jones-Sawyer notes that the union didn’t spend much under former Gov. Brown – not until the threat of prison closures became a reality after Newsom’s election in 2018.

“Once they started talking about closing prisons, that’s when the fear from the CCPOA came up,” Jones-Sawyer said. “That’s when they started writing double max-out checks.”

Jones-Sawyer said he’s frustrated by what he sees as abuses within the prison system, especially guards with multiple infractions keeping their jobs. The Office of the Inspector General earlier this year found that the corrections department had reclassified a backlog of staff misconduct complaints as “routine grievances,” and allowed the statute of limitations to expire in 127 complaints between 2022 and 2023.

Now, Jones-Sawyer said, he’s considering calling for an audit of the prison system’s facilities and spending.

“When (the corrections department) comes back and says this is the best way to do it, we try to see their logic and a lot of times we don’t,” he said.

Are those hard-charging tactics isolating the prison union? One bill introduced this year may be an indication. The bill would limit the number of empty beds available in the prison system to account for the declining inmate population.

Among the bill’s registered supporters are immigration advocates, the California Public Defenders Association and anti-incarceration lobbies.

There was just one group registered in opposition: the CCPOA.

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously Tuesday to approve an $843 million homelessness spending plan that includes nearly $200 million in reductions to programs and services in the next budget year.

Among those programs is Pathway Home, which helps move people from encampments into temporary housing. The county reduced funding for that program by $92 million, which will shrink it from 20 project sites to seven, officials said.

Supervisors also approved $105 million in reductions to other programs, including large cuts to street outreach teams, homelessness prevention programs and other supportive services.

County officials said they had to reduce spending in order to cover the rising costs of operating shelter beds and the loss of tens of millions in temporary state and federal funding, including some COVID-19 relief dollars.

“With federal neglect and state cuts, we have to do more with less,” Supervisor Lindsey Horvath told LAist. “And we will.”

The county’s new Department of Homeless Services and Housing has been warning about the looming shortfall since July. County officials solicited input on how to fill an initial $303 million gap.

Since then, the department adjusted the county’s homelessness spending plan, after finding some one-time state grants and cost-saving measures.

The budget year starts July 1.

Some funding restored

Last month, local homeless service providers urged county officials to restore all of the more than $200 million in proposed reductions to programs and services. Some supervisors raised concerns about specific cuts.

Since then, new revenue projections show the county stands to bring in $21 million more through Measure A than originally anticipated.

Measure A is a sales tax ordinance, approved by L.A. County voters in 2024, that funds homeless services and affordable housing initiatives. It is expected to generate about $1 billion annually, but exact revenues fluctuate with consumer spending.

The county’s slightly rosier revenue projections allowed the homeless department to roll back a fraction of the proposed reductions.

“It’s not a windfall and it doesn’t solve every challenge, but it does give us the ability to restore important programs that were on the chopping block,” Supervisor Janice Hahn said.

The board voted to use much of that $21 million to restore funding for two dozen full-time outreach workers and about 100 shelter beds that were previously on the chopping block.

The plan approved Tuesday also calls for $5 million in Measure A revenue to partially restore funding for interim housing in Long Beach, Pasadena and Glendale. It restored more than $1 million to operate family solution centers — hubs to connect unhoused families with services — and about $500,000 for a program that helps military veterans access government benefits.

Supervisor Holly Mitchell said she wishes Pathway Home funding could be maintained. She said it’s been crucial for helping people living in RV encampments in her district, which spans from Koreatown to much of the South Bay.

"These restorations don't expand encampment resolution operations,” Mitchell said Tuesday. “The services with the greatest impact in the Second District remain reduced, and the current plan does not replace what was cut."

County homelessness officials told supervisors the 100 shelter beds they saved will be prioritized for people living in encampments and will help make up for cuts to Pathway Home.

"The reduction to Pathway Home is not a reduced commitment to encampment resolution,” L.A. County Department of Homeless Services and Housing director Sarah Mahin said Tuesday. “It’s a recognition that it was built on one-time funding and we need to expand strategies to include more cost-effective resolution solutions."

New oversight push

The supervisors also voted 5-0 Tuesday to approve a new motion focused on accountability in homeless service contracting. The motion by Horvath and Kathryn Barger directs the homelessness department to work with the county auditor-controller to create strict oversight procedures for contracts, including random site visits, performance monitoring and provisions for termination.

They said the goal is to prevent the mismanagement that has plagued the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, and the fraud that has resulted in recent arrests. Last month, federal authorities arrested Alex Soofer, director of a nonprofit called Abundant Blessings, on suspicion of embezzling tens of millions in dollars meant to serve unhoused Angelenos. Soofer pleaded not guilty to the charges this week.

"Public dollars intended to address homelessness have gone unaccounted for under LAHSA," Horvath said. “That is unacceptable and it ends now with the county.”

Last year, the board voted to divert more than $300 million in county homelessness dollars away from LAHSA and administer the funds itself with a new homelessness department.

“As the department launches, every contract, every dollar, and every outcome must withstand scrutiny,” Horvath told LAist in a statement. “We don’t have resources to waste or time to lose in addressing the homelessness crisis.”

Barger described instances of fraud within the homeless services sector as “moral failures” that cannot be tolerated.

“They represent theft from the most vulnerable people in our community,” she said.

She also argued that ethical service providers “should not have their reputations destroyed by the criminal actions of a few bad actors.”

Barger told fellow supervisors at Tuesday’s meeting it’s their responsibility to monitor how county homelessness dollars are being spent — and to defund programs that aren’t generating results.

“Setting the budget is the easy part,” Barger said. “We have to see results. And if we don’t, we have to have a debate at this board: is that the best use of these resources?”

The department must report back to the board in 60 days with their full plan for monitoring contractors and preventing fraud and misuse of public funds.

Auditor-Controller Oscar Valdez told supervisors his office would submit a plan to county homelessness officials Tuesday.

A crew of four moon-bound astronauts will remain on the ground for at least a month after NASA delayed the launch of the Artemis II mission. During critical pre-launch testing Monday, mission managers uncovered a number of issues that prevented the completion of the test.

NASA is now planning a March launch date for the four astronauts — three from the U.S. and one from Canada — on a ten-day mission to circle the moon and return to Earth, traveling farther than any humans have ventured into deep space.

Issues leading to that delay began about an hour into Monday's test, known as the wet dress rehearsal. As the team began fueling the rocket at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, sensors picked up a hydrogen leak. Super-chilled hydrogen is used as the fuel for the massive Space Launch System (SLS) rocket.

Hydrogen is an efficient propellant for rockets — but its molecules are so tiny and light they can escape even the tightest of seals. Launch director Charlie Blackwell-Thompson said they had troubleshooted the initial leak, but when they began to pressurize the tank, another leak surfaced.

"And so as we began that pressurization, we did see that the leak within the cavity came up pretty quick," said Blackwell-Thompson.

(L/R) NASA Associate Administrator Amit Kshatriya, NASA Associate Administrator Lori Glaze, launch director Charlie Blackwell-Thompson, and manager of NASA's Space Launch System Program, John Honeycutt, hold a news conference on the Artemis II mission at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla., on Tuesday.

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Hydrogen leaks plagued testing of NASA's Artemis I mission in 2022. Blackwell-Thompson said lessons learned from that uncrewed flight were utilized for Artemis II, but there's more investigation is needed.

The wet dress rehearsal uncovered other issues — including a problem with the Orion capsule, which will carry the crew to the moon. While no one was on board Monday, teams practiced preparing the spacecraft for its passengers. A valve that pressurizes the vehicle required additional attention and took more time to close the hatch than anticipated.

Teams also uncovered issues with cameras due to cold weather and audio dropouts across communication channels. "As always, safety remains our top priority, for our astronauts, our workforce, our systems and the public," said NASA administrator Jared Isaacman in a post on X, and that NASA will only launch when the agency is ready.

Work now begins to fix the issues. NASA will require another wet dress rehearsal before giving the "GO" to put astronauts on board. "All in all, a very successful day for us on many fronts," said Blackwell-Thompson. "Then, on many others, we got some work we've got to go do."

The earliest launch window for another attempt is March 6. NASA has additional launch opportunities on March 7, 8, 9 and 11.

The crew of NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen were released from quarantine and will remain in Houston, Texas. They'll re-enter quarantine about 14 days ahead of the next launch attempt and make the trip to the Kennedy Space Center six days before liftoff.

Artemis II is testing key systems of the Orion spacecraft, like its maneuverability and life support systems, ahead of the planned Artemis III mission that will take humans to the lunar surface. The Artemis II will mark the first time humans have returned to the moon since the final Apollo lunar mission in 1972.
Copyright 2026 NPR

A trial got underway Tuesday in a case alleging that Huntington Beach illegally dilutes the power of Latino voters with its at-large election system.

Cities across Orange County and elsewhere in California have faced similar challenges over the past decade. Most have settled out of court by adopting by-district elections, where voters only vote on a city council representative from their area, rather than requiring candidates to run citywide. A notable exception is Santa Monica — the city has been fighting a challenge to its at-large election system in court for nearly 10 years.

Now, Huntington Beach is following suit.

The case was brought by the nonprofit group Southwest Voter Registration Education Project and Victor Valladares, a Huntington Beach resident and Democratic Party activist. It’s being heard by Orange County Superior Court Judge Craig L. Griffin.

The argument against at-large city elections

The plaintiffs allege Latino voters can’t elect a candidate of their choice under the current system, in violation of the California Voting Rights Act. This alleged dilution of Latino voting power, they say, leads to poor representation and negative consequences for the city’s majority-Latino Oak View neighborhood.

“Their needs get ignored,” Kevin Shenkman, the plaintiffs’ lawyer, said during his opening statement Tuesday. “It is a natural result of the at-large election system.”

Latinos make up about 20% of the population in Huntington Beach. Under a draft map of electoral districts drawn up by demographer David Ely, a witness for the plaintiffs, the district that includes the Oak View neighborhood would be 40% Latino. Plaintiffs argued this would give residents more power to elect a city councilmember who represents their interests.

The city’s defense of at-large elections

In their opening argument, lawyers representing Huntington Beach argued that Latinos in Huntington Beach are spread across the city and politically diverse.

The city’s lawyers also argued that recent elections of Latino city council members, including MMA star Tito Ortiz in 2020 and Gracey Van Der Mark in 2022, prove the city’s current at-large election system doesn’t impede Latino residents’ ability to participate in the local political process.

“The system works, it’s not broken, and the evidence will show that at trial,” said Anthony Taylor, one of the attorneys representing Huntington Beach.

The trial is expected to last into next week.

Go deeper

• Why were AI-equipped police cameras installed in this majority Latino Huntington Beach neighborhood?
• Huntington Beach's controversial voter ID law is illegal
• Voting by district gives Latino candidates a boost in Orange County
• District elections mean big governing changes for many California cities