The Issue: Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has been meeting with the Big 6 (the term coined for the Big 5 California Legislative Leaders plus the incoming Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg) to decide whether to have a special session of the Legislature now, or wait until the new Legislature takes office in December.  It is unlikely that the current legislature that negotiated the failed budget will be able to reach a compromise with such a short time remaining.

The State of California passed their annual budget for fiscal year 2008-2009 a record 85 days after the July 1st deadline.  Despite using a significantly larger-than-normal amount of time the budget they negotiated was flawed and is immediately on the chopping block for revision.

Governor Schwarzenegger is working with the State’s leadership, dubbed the Big 6, which include himself, Assembly Speaker Karen Bass, Assembly Republican Leader Mike Villines, outgoing Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata, incoming Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg and Senate Republican Leader Dave Cogdill.  Together they hope to negotiate a deal without having to bring the entire Legislature back to Sacramento.

There are advantages and disadvantages to bringing together the current legislature in special session.

Advantages

1. The current legislature is familiar.  Leadership know their voting tendancies and might have an easier time negotiating a deal that the rank and file members will be able to support.  Dealing with new members in December will mean starting from scratch with some members.
2. The current legislature might solve the problem quicker.  If the current session can get the budget balanced by December, the new session comes in with a clean slate, rather than a mess to clean up.

Disadvantages

1. The current session includes many termed out members who don’t have allegiance to the leadership.  Since they aren’t coming back in December, they have no incentive to get back to Sacramento for the vote.
2. The current session has many members working on re-election campaigns.  They might not want to go on the record supporting or opposing portions of the budget 2 weeks before election day.
3. They finished the current budget 85 days late!  How can we even be sure they could pass a budget amendment by December?

My Opinion: Arnold is making the effort, but in vain.

We are in election season.  Everyone in the legislature is working to hard to stay in office right now and won’t want to work on anything controversial like the budget.  Many officials make their career on being fiscally liberal or conservative and aren’t going to compromise on the eve of elections.  Arnold is doing what he should do, keeping everyone talking so a budget amendment can get put together by January.  Don’t hold your breath for an amendment plan anytime soon.