How did the Democrats double-cross the Republicans in releasing 27,000 prisoners in this budget solution?
Here is their controversial strategy: It is called a “trailer bill”; budget bills that declare what measures need to be taken to meet the general language of the budget agreement after the budget has been approved. The best explanation was offered in 2007 by Sacramento Bee Columnist Dan Walters: “State budgets became complicated documents after California voters passed Proposition 13 in 1978 and somebody dreamed up the “trailer bill” – a measure that would make the technical changes needed to implement the budget’s fiscal policies. Were the Legislature to decide, for instance, that the state couldn’t afford cost-of-living increases in welfare grants, as it did this year, a trailer bill is needed to suspend the boost. Initially, trailer bills were just boring bits of legislative ephemera. But politics being what they are, someone eventually noticed that the trailers, drafted and enacted quickly and secretly, made them perfect vehicles for “low-balling” other stuff.” In this case the Leg
