| It has been truly depressing to watch the Twitter feeds of John Myers and Scott Lay tonight, as the mood shifted from guardedly hopeful to despairing. The Senate keeps voting on things and not coming up with any solutions. They tried to pass the stop-gap solution again, and came up short of the votes needed. They passed the majority-vote budget with some fee increases, and the Governor vetoed them. Let's all please remember that. With a stroke of the pen, the Governor could have ended this.
If SB 64 and SB 80 (the stop-gap) don't pass by midnight (and actually, in an hour or so, because it takes a couple hours to prepare the necessary paperwork), the state will forfeit $3 billion in cuts to the 2008-09 budget year, which they will have to find in the following year, and a total of around $7 billion in total costs, when you add in the costs of additional borrowing, etc.
At some point, a large majority-vote budget (which wouldn't take effect for 90 days), absent the tax increases, passed the Senate and moved on to the Assembly, where it will be voted on tonight. According to Scott Lay, it covers all but $1 billion of the target, which is probably enough for the Governor to veto it. Why, it's almost as if he doesn't want a solution but instead an opportunity to push through a bunch of long-sought goals shock-doctrine style!
The Senate just tried again to get the necessary votes for the stop-gap, and fell short by the exact same amount. They're in recess until 9:30 and will probably get only one more shot.
...we're past 10pm at this point, the Senate has yet to reconvene, and by most calculations the die has been cast. Enjoy your scrip! Zed Hollingsworth has been spotted in the Governor's smoking tent, for whatever that's worth. But the Governor remains intransigent and apparently determined to bring the state to complete failure.
...counting down the minutes until the end of the fiscal year is kind of like waiting for New Year's, only it involves budgets and trailer bills and at the end people die.
...So the Senate is going back into session. John Myers tweets: "Senate pro Tem Steinberg calls senators back..we've watched a lot of "shuttle diplomacy" betwn Dems, GOP, and Guv's ofc. Still, long odds." We're at T-minus 43 minutes.
...the way this is going from the Twitter feeds, Steinberg looks like he's desperately trying to pass the stop-gap measures again. The odds are long. He pleads to the Yacht Party not to be party to irresponsibility. I wonder what the response will be?... this: "Reeps still refuse to put up votes." Maldonado, in fact, won't vote at all. He's just walking away. Abstaining his way into oblivion.
...Democrats are spending a lot of time lobbying Leland Yee (who has been consistently voting against this stop-gap solution because it hurts schools too much) and Abel Maldonado (who isn't voting), but of course even if they switched their votes that would leave the Senate one vote short of being able to override Arnold and put the stop-gap into effect.
...Republicans are playing their usual game of holding back all their votes until all the Democrats vote for something, so they're waiting on Yee to flip. But assuming he does in the next 20 minutes, who joins him? Two GOP votes are needed. Beyond Maldonado, who would change their vote?
...Yee just came back to the floor, I'd bet he'll vote with the majority this time around, but time is running out... indeed, Yee votes aye. Will there be a second Republican? Or even a first?
...Maldonado still not voting on the three-bill stop-gap package. 10 minutes and counting...
...This is pretty much over. At midnight, the state loses the equivalent of $7 billion in savings. I will remind everyone that Senate Democrats, in the end, voted 25-0 for this deal; Republicans, 0-14 with 1 cowardly abstention (Maldo)... and Steinberg shuts it down. It's over. IOUs will go out on Thursday, $7 billion wasted by the so-called fiscal conservatives. |
