The California Correctional Peace Officers Association was once one of the most visible – and powerful – political forces in Sacramento. It thrived with the state’s vast prison expansion and it muscled concessions from Democratic and Republican governors alike.
But the CCPOA now is in transition. The 28,500-member union still has the power – but it keeps a far lower profile.
CCPOA’s incoming president Chuck Alexander acknowledged that the union took a public relations hit during the Schwarzenegger years. He once said that CCPOA’s battles for a new contract with a state deep in deficit as it advocated for “lock them up and throw away the key, warehouse-type prisons” made it easy for critics to define CCPOA as “only in it for themselves” and “just another special interest.”
Lessons were learned from the years of confrontation and conflict, and from the negative perception of being a “special interest” at odds with the public good.
“The demonization of special interests [means] that you have to spend $3 to get 50 cents of impact,” Alexander told Capitol Weekly. “It is more effective to talk to the Legislature than to throw PAC money around,” Alexander added that it’s better “to be part of the process than to be adversarial.”
Over the years, especially in the 1990s and early 2000s, it was hard to overstate the power and influence of the CCPOA, which represents those who guard state prison inmates, as well as other prison personnel.
http://capitolweekly.net/ccpoa-transition-powerful-low-profile-campaign-spending/