A much-amended bill proposed by Assemblymember Gregg Hart to give county supervisors statewide the potential for greater oversight of their county jails passed the Assembly last week by a vote of 41-25 with 14 members either not voting or abstaining.
If the bill, AB 2257 , is approved by the State Senate and signed by the governor, it would give county supervisors the option of wielding more direct leverage in the appointment of county jail executive administrators. Translated into plain terms, supervisors could require their sheriff to submit the names of jail executives to the supervisors for their approval. County supervisors would not be allowed to submit the names of their own nominees. In addition, jail administrators going through this approval process would serve for terms of three years. After that, they would have to go through the process of approval again.
For county supervisors who feel their county jails are out of control, Hart’s bill is designed to provide some leverage. Initially, Hart had proposed a bill that would give county supervisors the latitude of hiring someone other than their county sheriff to run their county jail . According to Hart’s District Director Ethan Bertrand, this was regarded as too extreme an expression of frustration as to be unusable. “We heard people say this was ‘the nuclear option,’ that it was off the table. We wanted something that could be usable.”