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Not so minor point: the California Three Strikes law requires the first two felonies to be "violent" or "serious". From the reference I just checked, the only non-violent serious crimes are "lewd or lascivious act on a child under the age of 14 years" and providing hard drugs to minors ("heroin, cocaine, phencyclidine(PCP), or any methamphetamine-related drug" or a precursor of the latter).

I find it impossible to work up any sympathy for someone who commits two such crimes and then shows he has no intention of staying on the right side of the law by committing any felony, violent or not. I also don't see how it's bad public policy; as one person put it WRT Giuliani's clean up of New York City: "He found the root cause of crime, criminals."

No one is arguing that it is bad public policy. I myself am only arguing that it is prudent to reconcile public policy solutions to the public's bank account prior to implementing them.

I live in Houston, yes I'm a Texan. No one is tougher on crime than Texas. In some cases, yes, Texas is too tough. One of the major reasons Texas did not follow along on the whole Three Strikes bandwagon was because the political leadership thought it might not be cost effective. Now I don't know if it is or it isn't, I would need more data to make that determination.

My point is, the leadership here in Texas, at least had the ability to analyze the likely fiscal consequences of such a policy and then decide whether or not to enact it. Balancing the fiscal consequences with the public safety benefits. In California, unless I am misunderstanding their ballot initiatives, the leadership has no choice but to enact the policy. Regardless of the policy's fiscal consequences.

I'm just not so sure that is a good way to do things.

"[...] the Three Strikes ballot initiative ... obliges [the Governor] to incarcerate large numbers of nonviolent offenders indefinitely."

"No one is arguing that it is bad public policy."

I don't see how the above two statements can be reconciled.

"[...] the Three Strikes ballot initiative ... obliges [the Governor] to incarcerate large numbers of nonviolent offenders indefinitely."

This is a statement of fact, with no assertion made as to 'goodness' or 'badness' of that fact. Indeed I would argue that there is no uncontestable 'objective' basis on which to base such a appraisal. Given the facts present in the article.

What I have been saying is that there is an uncontestable 'objective' basis for judging the fiscal consequences of these policies. Further, that I am unsure as to whether or not precluding your leaders from considering those fiscal consequences is bad policy. I am thinking that it is bad policy. Please note that this is not about Three Strikes, it is about the wisdom of not letting your leaders judge the merits of Three Strikes before it is implemented. And, more generally, not letting your leaders judge the merits of ballot initiatives before they are implemented.

> This is a direct consequence of the fact that Californians are able to vote on ballot initiatives obligating that state's government to take on, sometimes quite expensive, commitments.

The voter mandated spending is less than the revenue, so the gap is due to spending that the legislature and governor insisted on.

> Pair this with the fact that Californians have made increasing their tax burden exceedingly difficult

Not true, and not relevant due to the above.

> the law enforcement brotherhoods and lobbyists will come after him.

It's interesting that you didn't mention the education lobbyists, who get 50% by statute.

> the people of California must be especially difficult to manage.

Let me suggest that politicians are not supposed to "manage" the people that they supposedly represent and should fail when they try.

BTW - CA has three strikes because politicians couldn't be trusted to keep violent thugs in jail. That was a change - until the 70s, they did.

Sounds like what we really need to do is outsource the prisons. To, say, Mexico, or China. I'll bet the Chinese don't pay $50,000 per prisoner per year to keep their prisoners locked up -- heck, they probably harness their labour to turn a profit.

Heck, they're probably not a democracy. And probably have no constitution or bill of rights. And probably haven't caught up with the 19th century. And probably disappear people left and right.

Great role model.

You know the sad thing is that the law enforcement interests would probably come after you on that too.

Sad.