Jerry Brown’s George Wallace Moment on Prisons

The fight between many states and the federal government over carrying out the health-care law figured to be the most significant states’ rights blowup of the decade. Yet the most colorful battle of this sort may be taking place in California over prison overcrowding.

Jerry Brown, the quirky progressive governor, is defying the orders of three liberal federal judges to release thousands of criminals from the state’s prison system in order to relieve chronic overcrowding. The rhetoric is growing more heated as the state defies a special judicial panel that last week rejected the governor’s attempt to delay the releases and used harsh language in doing so: “Despite our repeated efforts to assist defendants to comply with our Population Reduction Order, they have consistently engaged in conduct designed to frustrate those efforts.”