Something to be Said for Consistency

On July 7, Sen. George Runner, a Lancaster Republican, has a joint resolution scheduled for hearing in the upper house’s Public Safety Committee.

A resolution is basically a letter requesting Congress and the President to do something. This one, SJR 11, asks the federal government not to send California any terrorist or suspected terrorist being held in Guantanamo Bay.

“The California State Legislature respectfully urges the President of the United States and the Congress of the United States to employ necessary measures to ensure that no terrorist or suspected terrorist detained at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba is permitted to enter California in custody or otherwise,” reads the resolution’s penultimate paragraph.

One fourth of the resolution’s eight paragraphs are spent articulating how awful some of these detainees are such as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, “mastermind of the September 11 attacks on the United States.”

Another paragraph notes that Californians are “profoundly concerned that a lack of vigilance will result in the release of terrorists who may once again threaten their families”

Runner has some experience in attempting to restrict the release of unsavory types, although on a more narrow scale.

On June 23, the Sacramento Bee reported that in 2006 Runner cut what he calls a “side agreement” with the state prison system to reduce the number of inmates paroled to his Antelope Valley-centered district.

Runner argued a disproportionate number of parolees to Los Angeles County where winding up there.

It’s unclear from the Bee’s report what, if anything, Runner would do in return for the state corrections department limiting parolees to his district to those with “historical ties” to the area.

Parolees are required only to be returned to the county of their last legal residence. That leaves a lot of geographic latitude in Los Angeles, the state’s largest county.

State prison officials subsequently canceled the agreement saying it wasn’t legal.

“I think my job as a legislator is to make sure my constituents are being treated fairly by the state of California,” Runner said.

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