State Fights Effort to Cut Jail Funds

Looking for savings in the federal budget, New Hampshire Sen. Judd Gregg thought he found a good target recently when he persuaded a subcommittee to cut about $550 million from states such as California that have illegal immigrants in their jails.

But now the power of presidential politics is weighing in with a Democratic-Republican one-two punch. And prospects are rising that Congress will have to find its cuts somewhere else.

Vice President Al Gore was attending a fund-raiser for his White House campaign Wednesday night in San Francisco when Gov. Gray Davis pulled him aside and reminded him that this is a top priority for California--the state that is crucial to his candidacy.

Meanwhile, Gore’s top Republican rival, Texas Gov. George W. Bush, is reminding Washington leaders that his state is a major beneficiary of the federal fund that pays states a portion of their costs for incarcerating illegal immigrants.

“It is certainly helpful to have the two men most people believe will be the nominees of their respective parties for president lobbying on our side,” Davis said in an interview. “We will have a strong bipartisan group pressuring the Congress. I think it will be difficult for Congress and the White House to say no to California, Texas, New York, Illinois and other big states.”

For more than a decade, the prison funding program has been a flash point in state-federal relations. In 1986, Congress agreed that the federal government’s failure to block illegal immigration should not impose a cost on state prisons.

Still, the program was not funded for another nine years. Now in its fourth year of funding, the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program directs $183 million to California--less than a third of what the state estimates it pays to incarcerate about 22,000 illegal immigrants.

California county governments get another $60 million a year, a third of which goes to Los Angeles jails alone.

In both state and county cases, the federal aid is a considerable share of the money used to operate California jails and prisons that are already overcrowded and underfunded.

Earlier this month, however, the Senate appropriations subcommittee chaired by Gregg slashed the federal funding program from $650 million nationwide to $100 million--dropping California’s total share by more than $200 million.

The stakes for California are even more significant because the state budget Davis is expected to sign next week anticipated that the federal government would significantly increase its funding for the program.

Davis had high hopes because he has personally lobbied for the extra money since February, when he went to Washington and discussed the issue privately with President Clinton, Gore and California’s congressional delegation.

Recently, when the funds were cut in the subcommittee, Davis helped organize a letter to Senate leaders that he co-signed with the Republican governors from Arizona, Illinois, New Jersey and New York.

“By cutting funding . . . the federal government is abandoning its responsibility and forcing the states to pay for a federally mandated service,” the June 21 letter complained.

Davis said Jeb Bush, the Republican governor of Florida, agreed in a telephone conversation with him Wednesday evening to join the cause. He added that Jeb Bush’s brother, the Texas governor, is sending a separate letter to the Senate leadership.

Privately, Washington aides say they are optimistic that the considerable pressure of presidential politics and powerful governors will restore the prison funds before the federal budget takes effect in October. They also say the issue has an even better chance in the House, where big states have far more advantage.

That would be fine with Gregg as long as lawmakers find somewhere else to trim $550 million, said Ed Amorosi, spokesman for the Republican senator. He said the Senate is committed to cut more than $1 billion from the $18-billion Justice Department budget, which includes the money for state prisons.

“There’s a finite amount of money,” Amorosi said. “To fund this means taking money from another Justice Department program. So people have to decide what is the priority.”