BART’s even weaker legislation

Pub date September 3, 2009
WriterTim Redmond
SectionPolitics Blog

By Wendi Jonassen and Tim Redmond

There’s a move in Sacramento to authorize BART to put its relatively weak police oversight process into action — but the legislation is even weaker than BART’s cautious plan.

The BART Board approved a plan this summer, but can’t enact it without the state. BART was created by the Legislature as a special district, and lacks the power to create a police-oversight agency.
Assembly member Sandre Swanson (D-East Bay), is trying to get legislation through — but there are a few major problems. For one thing, at the insistence of the police-lobbying group PORAC, the legislation at this point doesn’t allow the elected BART Board to overrule the police chief on discipline.

So the elected officials who run the agency will have no authority over rogue cops. That’s insane.

The other problem is that the legislative session is almost over – and the only way Swanson can pull this off is through a legislative maneuver. He tried to take existing bills that have been through both Assembly and Senate committees and “gut and strip” – that is, replace all the existing language with new language. But he couldn’t pull that off.

Now he has to ask for waivers and exceptions so a bill can be heard by the end of the legislative year. According to him, “this is almost nearly impossible. It is essentially trying to get six months of work done in two weeks.”

And Tom Ammiano, who has his own, much stronger bill to mandate civilian oversight for the BART police, isn’t going to support the Swanson effort. He wants the best model rather than pushing a weak bill forward, says Quintin Mecke, his press secretary.

Swanson wants to move forward with the parts of the BART plan that everyone agrees on: The creation of a police auditor and a citizen review mechanism.

He remains optimistic that one way or another, there will be a bill containing both the police auditor and a citizen review board sometime this week.

When asked about the claim that the bill is highly water-down, Swanson responded by saying this claim, “misses clear understanding of the legislative process.”

Essentially, Swanson wants to leave the weak portions of the bill to possible future amendments and more bills. The idea is to get at least something passed this year, with the goal of coming back later to strengthen it.

But with the power of the police lobby, it’s possible that a weak, watered-down bill will pass – and never get improved. That’s the worst possible option.