Schwarzenegger parole deal an end-run on democrats.

Four days after he took office, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger did what it took former Gov. Gray Davis two years to do. He approved his first parole.

When it came to paroling murderers, no matter what the circumstances of the crime, Davis's well-scripted ritual was deny, deny, deny. He blocked all but eight paroles to nearly 300 inmates that the parole board had approved for release.

With his quick action, Schwarzenegger brought sanity back to paroles. It will help cut prison costs and send a signal to prisoners that hard work and a clean record counts.

His action is also a cautionary tale for Democrats. Davis stubbornly turned down those who were considered worthy of release because the ghost of Willie Horton had haunted him. After being released on a weekend furlough from a Massachusetts prison, Horton, a convicted killer, escaped, and slashed a Maryland man and raped his fiancee. Davis and every other Democrat cringed during the presidential elections in 1988 when the elder George Bush pounded Democratic presidential candidate Michael Dukakis on the Horton release.

The soft-on-crime tag Republicans plastered on them dates back to Richard Nixon's successful campaign in 1968. Nixon branded Democrats as being permissive on crime for appointing soft-sob judges whom he claimed let droves of dangerous criminals loose. Davis didn't forget this political lesson. His release of a convicted murderer, no matter how small the chance that he or she would commit another crime, posed too much political danger.

But though playing hardball may seem like a way of snatching votes, it's bad public policy. Besides California, only two states, Maryland and Oklahoma, give governors the power to veto decisions that their parole boards make on prisoner releases. In both states, Democratic and Republicans governors have also taken a granite stance against releasing convicted killers.

But if they can use parole as a political football, and pander to public terror about crime and violence to appease voters, then why even bother to have parole boards in the first place, or better yet, why even bother to have paroles?

In usurping the authority of their parole boards to make decisions, meddling governors are in effect saying that they have no confidence in their own appointees. Davis' hard line not only undercut the parole board's authority, it also created the false public impression that parole boards cavalierly allow killers to waltz out of prison.

There is absolutely no evidence to support this. The parole board reviews 4,000 parole requests each year for inmates serving life sentences and only one percent gets approved. Parole board members know that the governor, the legislature, and California voters do not want to put killers back on the streets.

This is not to say that parole board members are infallible. They can make a bad decision and release someone who could endanger the public. The governor must have the right to review their decisions. But with the handful of convicted killers who have shown that they have redeemed themselves, it makes no sense for a governor to hold them hostages to past political fears.

The prisoners the parole board green lights for release are not Willie Hortons. But as long as some politicians think that they are, prisoners who can be productive citizens will be denied the second chance they've earned and deserve.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is the author of "The Crisis in Black and Black" (Middle Passage Press). He can be reached at [e-mail].