Budget dead ends and delays

No, really, how bad could it be? How seriously should we take the state's latest budget crisis if a clutch of lawmakers, including the chairwoman of the Senate Budget Committee, is spending the emergency session in India? What kind of buy-in from Californians should be expected when several others are in Hawaii and China, and even Assembly Speaker Karen Bass (D-Los Angeles) just phoned in to one of the "big five" leadership negotiations because she found something more pressing to attend to in Atlanta?

November 23, 2008