The Alarm Will Sound Monday Around 3:00

This could be just to get the freshman members of the legislature up to speed, but it sounds rather... serious.

The entire Legislature will meet in a joint session Monday in the Assembly chambers to discuss the state's cash situation and overall budget dynamics with state fiscal leaders, according to Jim Evans, spokesman for Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg.

In a rare Budget 101 session, Treasurer Bill Lockyer, Controller John Chiang, Department of Finance Director Mike Genest and Legislative Analyst Mac Taylor will describe the consequences of delaying a compromise over the budget. They're likely to discuss the possibility of issuing IOUs to state vendors and state workers, as well as layoff scenarios and other consequences.

If I had to guess, this will be one of those meetings where everyone is sat down and told that this is what they have to do or the state will fall into the ocean. They should get some veterans from Scared Straight to run it. Put the fear of God into these lawmakers.

Although, I can't say whether or not it'll be successful. I mean, the Governor has already called a state of emergency and that didn't shake anybody up. Mike Villines is still sounding like a Yacht Party regular on budget issues:

Republican Assembly Leader Mike Villines (R-Clovis) took a dim view of a Democratic proposal to take reducing the threshold to pass a state budget to the voters.

Calling the proposed bill, which would ask voters to make a simple majority all that's necessary for passing a budget, a Democratic power grab, Villines said doing so was a duck on responsibly addressing the state's budget woes.

"Shutting Republicans out of the budget process will just make it easier for Democrats to pass more of the same reckless spending measures that have resulted in our current fiscal crisis." Villines said in a statement released late Wednesday."This will do nothing to improve our long-term budget picture, and will actually make things much worse."

He still wants a spending cap, of course.

But Lockyer and Chiang have plenty of ammunition to throw around. Failing a bailout from the Feds (which I think is a better bet at this point), state workers are about to be laid off or have their salaries frozen, and cuts to popular professions like teachers and nurses and cops and firefighters would be on the horizon in a protracted delay. Whether or not this threat of potentially hundreds of thousands of angry Californians and their families marching in the streets (Lockyer and Chiang need to have a flair for DRAMA in this speech) is enough to overrule the Iron Law of Institutions remains to be seen.