Willie Horton's shadow haunts the Capitol as lawmakers wrestle with how to cut $1.2 billion from state prisons without endangering public safety.

More than two decades after Republican presidential candidate George H.W. Bush used televised ads of murderer Horton to paint presidential opponent Michael Dukakis as soft on crime, state GOP lawmakers are slapping Democrats with a similar charge over proposed prison cuts.

The politically explosive issue, coupled with opposition from some law enforcement groups, is making many Democrats jittery - especially those with aspirations for higher office.

The Assembly balked Thursday at approving a wide-ranging prison plan narrowly passed by the Democratic-controlled Senate and supported by Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

The package was touted as a way to reduce the prison population by 27,300 inmates this year and concentrate parole supervision on the most serious offenders without endangering public safety.

"It's a whole package ... it's very well-thought-out, and I hope they have to courage to go and vote for this," Schwarzenegger said.

Partisan fighting is likely to climax next week in the Assembly, where Democrats are crafting amendments in hopes of keeping the measure alive. The bill requires only a majority vote, so Democrats can push it through without Republican support if they can muster 41 of their 49 members.

But prospects for passage are clouded by ambition, timing and political peril in the Assembly, where 11 Democrats have expressed interest in running for higher office - including three for attorney general - in primary elections less than a year away.

"It's an emotionally laden issue, and I think there is a Willie Horton factor here to some degree," said Garry South, a Democratic strategist.

"Democrats, in particular, are used to getting their brains beaten to a pulp over issues involving criminal justice, going back several decades," South said. "So there's a natural reluctance."

Horton was a convicted felon from Massachusetts who raped a Maryland woman and assaulted her fiancé while free on a weekend furlough when Dukakis was governor.

Wayne Johnson, a GOP strategist, said that voters rightly should hold politicians accountable for the prison plan, which would release some low-level offenders before their sentences end.

"I think anybody who supports this plan is making a huge political mistake," he said.

Another reason for ambitious Democrats to worry: Police chiefs and district attorneys, whose election endorsements are coveted, are lobbying against portions of the package.

But Tim Hodson, director of the Center for California Studies at California State University, Sacramento, said that incumbent Democrats might have little to fear in primary election challenges for safe party seats.

"It's tough to win a Democratic primary by positioning yourself to the right of a candidate," he said.

Assembly Speaker Karen Bass conceded this week that some Democrats are wary of what she describes as opposition hysteria to the prison plan. She compared it to venom whipped up by opponents of President Barack Obama's proposed health care overhaul.

"I think it's a real similar situation," she said. "When you're talking about public safety, when you're talking about crime, corrections, it's a visceral issue. ... You're going to think of the latest homicide that happened, and you're going to draw all the connections."

Bass proposes to eliminate a provision in the Senate-passed plan that has attracted the most intense opposition.

Known as "alternative custody," the controversial proposal would allow the release of up to 6,300 low-level, nonviolent inmates who are elderly, medically infirm, or have less than a year remaining on their sentences.

Inmates released under the plan would be subject to electronic monitoring under "house arrest," which could include placement in a residence, local program, hospital or treatment center.

But Republicans blast the idea as "early release" of dangerous criminals into communities.

GOP critics also rip the proposed creation of an appointed sentencing commission with broad powers to rewrite sentencing guidelines.

But commission supporters hail the idea as a long-overdue measure to ensure equity.

Statutory language for the proposed commission says the intent is to base sentencing practices on "fairness, justice and accountability."

Taken together, the sentencing commission and the alternative custody proposal would lead to tens of thousands of offenders being on the streets in years to come rather than in prisons, according to GOP opponents.

Republican Sen. Tom Harman of Huntington Beach blasted the prison plan as a "get-out-of-jail-free card."

Sen. Jeff Denham, R-Merced, predicted "mayhem on our streets."

Nonsense, counter many Democrats.

Though the most fiery GOP criticism has been aimed at the sentencing commission and alternative custody proposals, they are part of a broader plan that also calls for enhancing parole supervision of serious offenders and allowing inmates to earn additional sentencing credits for completing rehabilitation or education programs in prison.

Sen. Dean Florez, a Shafter Democrat who is eyeing a run for lieutenant governor next year, was among four Senate Democrats who voted against the prison plan. He said it would "turn prisoners loose" and "help those who have harmed so many."

But Assemblyman Alberto Torrico, a Newark Democrat running for attorney general, said amendments proposed by the Assembly should eliminate such fears, and he could support them, if changes are made to require legislative approval of any recommendations made by a sentencing commission.

Torrico said he does not fear political repercussions.

"The main thing is, I've got a job to do," he said. "My next job? Whatever. I've got a job to do now - and I'm going to do it."