The alleged judicial "temper tantrum" that Gov. Jeb Bush is unhappy about reminds me of way back when.

Back in the 1980s, Florida's main response to crowded prisons was simply to keep cramming in more inmates. And it wasn't gripes from inmates or endangered corrections officers that forced lawmakers to tackle the problem.

It took a federal judge.

Judge Susan Black made sure in the 1980s that if Florida didn't build more prisons or expand existing ones, the state prison system had to release one inmate for every inmate it took in. And because the state still stalled on creating more prison space, the judge's population cap resulted in shockingly early releases for many serious criminals.

That made prison crowding, which most people had found easy to ignore, become a hot political issue at last.

Some lawmakers tried to get through that political difficulty just by criticizing the judge, which is so easy, but it became obvious that neither the judge nor early release of prisoners were about to stop.

Finally, the state wrote the check for a long-overdue prison building spree.

Why this history lesson?

Well, Jeb is leaving office in a few weeks, but one of his last acts has been to blast a Florida judge -- Circuit Judge Crockett Farnell -- for threatening to throw a Jeb appointee in jail.

Jeb called the judge's warning to Lucy Hadi, director of the massive Department of Children and Families, a "temper tantrum."

Well, it is good if a judge knows when to get mad. Farnell called it right, and Jeb's attempt to insult him proves it.

Jeb wants us to think the judge was somehow overstepping his bounds and being unreasonable. But Farnell was simply taking the next logical step to enforce a state law that Hadi's agency has been flagrantly breaking.

The law says jail inmates declared mentally incompetent can't be kept in jails, where they are often in danger and can be a serious problem for corrections staff, even though those prisoners are often only awaiting trial on minor charges.

The law requires they be moved to mental health facilities within 15 days after arrest. Hadi's agency has been keeping them in jail for months, and claiming it is too strapped for cash to find proper places to put them.

Is the lack of compliance not Hadi's fault?

Well, it was her job to at least start demanding, as loudly as necessary, that the state provide enough money to comply with the law. Instead, she acted as if the judge's order to comply with the law was just a polite but impractical suggestion best ignored.

That's why the judge made his headline-grabbing threat.

"I'll do whatever I have to do to get somebody's attention," Farnell told the St. Petersburg Times. And soon he imposed an $80,000 fine.

Not coincidentally, Jeb's irritated response and Hadi's announcement of plans to resign came soon afterward.

Clearly, the judge now has their attention.

An Associated Press story on Friday quoted a DCF spokesman as saying the fine won't help and wastes money needed to tackle the problem. "We'd like to work with the judge in solving this problem, not against the court," that spokesman said.

Work with the judge? I suggest they work with the governor's office and the Legislature instead. The judge can't write the agency a check.

But he can write an arrest warrant.

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