Experts List: California's 2008-09 Budget Issues
The following UC Davis School of Law faculty members are available to comment on Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's proposed 2008-09 California budget priorities and other state issues that the governor and Legislature will be tackling.
COVERING ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS—Whether to restrict undocumented immigrants' access to health care is a major source of controversy in the debate over universal health care coverage. Kevin R. Johnson, the Mabie-Apallas Professor of Public Interest Law and associate dean for academic affairs at the UC Davis School of Law, argues that most illegal immigrants come to the U.S. seeking work, not free benefits, and that their use of health care services is not a significant drain on the system. Johnson is the author of Opening the Floodgates: Why America Needs to Rethink Its Borders and Immigration Laws and The "Huddled Masses" Myth: Immigration and Civil Rights. He is co-editor of the ImmigrationProf blog and a member of U.S. Sen. Barack Obama's Immigration Policy Group. He is also a professor of Chicana/o studies at UC Davis. Contact: Kevin R. Johnson, School of Law, (530) 752-0243, [email protected].
PRISON REFORM—Floyd Feeney, the Homer and Ann Berryhill Angelo Professor of Law, can discuss California prisons from a legal, economic, political, and historical perspective. He clerked for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Black and served President Johnson as assistant director of the President's Crime Commission before joining UC Davis in 1968. He directed the UC Davis Center for Administration of Criminal Justice from 1968 to 1986, with the goal of helping to reform the criminal justice system. He has been honored by the National Institute of Justice and the California Probation, Parole, and Correctional Association. His consulting and evaluation projects include work for the National Institute of Justice, the National Center for State Courts, the California Legislature and the Police Foundation. From 2000 to 2001 he served as legal adviser to the Speaker's Commission on the California Initiative Process. His recent research includes work on the economic costs of California criminal justice. Contact: Floyd Feeney, School of Law, (530) 752-2893, [email protected].