Budget to Pass Today

I was holding off on writing a budget post because it seemed likely that this morning's headlines were going to be quickly outdated. They came close to passing a budget last night, but Sen. Ackerman appeared to be jerking the Democrats around. Now it looks like a budget has been agreed to and is about to pass the Senate. Frank Russo has the breaking news.

The California State Senate is in the process of passing the state's budget with Senate Republican leader Dick Ackerman joining his fellow Republican lawmaker Abel Maldonado in voting for it and trailer bills associated with it. Some of the trailer bills, attached to and necessary for the budget to go into effect have been passed by the Senate and have received other Republican votes.

The budget bill is "on call," meaning the record is being kept open for additional votes to pass it. It has 26 votes, one shy of the number needed. The Senate is waiting for the arrival of Democratic State Senator Edward Vincent who is bill but will provide the final vote for passage.

The process of passing the budget and the trailer bills should be accomplished by this afternoon, and then it will land on Arnold's desk for his signature. It is about friggin' time. This delay has caused a lot of damage to this state. More details should emerge throughout the day about the actual details of this deal and the make-up of the $700 million in blue-line cuts Arnold is going to make.

[UPDATE] 1:55 The traditional media sources are starting to weigh in. It appears that the Republicans didn't get too much from their holdout and it is very similar to the budget that passed the Assembly. Here is the LAT:

Among the final changes Republicans won is a prohibition against using global warming concerns in lawsuits to block transportation and levee improvement projects authorized by voters last year. Environmentalists and Democrats have said such lawsuits are not a threat to any projects.

The deal also will allow railroads to apply for state money intended to help mitigate pollution, another priority of the GOP holdouts.

Republicans gave up on several other demands, including one to funnel more school money to their suburban and rural districts and another that Schwarzenegger outline all $700 million in cuts. The GOP also abandoned efforts to cut the state's welfare program.

There have not been any lawsuits filed or even threatened over transportation bond construction. The Republicans were simply afraid that it would happen and held up the budget over it. I am very glad that they failed to get the other items listed above. So far the news is about as good as could be expected thus far, not that the original budget was that great.