"This is just another example where the state has failed to enforce its own laws," said state Sen. Michael Machado (D-Linden), who wrote the bill to build medical facilities, SB 1665. "How many more times are we going to abdicate our responsibility and let the federal courts come in and govern the state?"
Receiver J. Clark Kelso wants to spend the $7 billion to build up to seven facilities with a total of 10,000 beds for inmates with long-term medical and mental health problems, and to renovate existing clinics at the state's 33 prisons. He wants to begin construction early next year.
Schwarzenegger's office said in a statement that "the receiver's plan is necessary to bringing our prisons' healthcare up to constitutional levels, as required by the federal courts. We're confident that the Legislature understands the need to improve our prison healthcare system and to do it in a financially responsible way."
Machado said he would request another vote on the measure Thursday, before a deadline passes for the Senate to approve the legislation.
Kelso said he remained optimistic that the Republicans might change their minds by then. If they don't, he said, he will be forced to take hundreds of millions of dollars directly from state coffers this year to continue operating, as opposed to borrowing nearly all of the $7 billion, as he had proposed.
The receiver could also seek an order from Henderson to compel the state to provide money, but Kelso said that would be a last resort.
"I'm proceeding step by step," Kelso said. "You don't jump to the end at the beginning."
Several Senate Republicans had previously indicated they would support the construction plan, but on Tuesday they met in private before the vote and decided as a group to oppose it.
State Sen. Dave Cox (R-Fair Oaks) said he thought it possible that some Republicans would change their minds by Thursday if there were a strategy to coordinate the receiver's plan, the proposed lawsuit settlement and last year's prison spending measure.
"You need to do this as a package," Cox said.
Because the bill would take effect immediately, it needs approval from two-thirds of the Democrat-controlled Senate, or 27 votes. On Tuesday, the measure garnered 22 votes, with 14 Republicans voting against it. Three Democrats and one Republican also abstained.
