Friday the 13th a new beginning kills

Friday the 13th a new beginning kills

But negotiations between Republicans and Jerry Brown have broken down. And friday the 13th a new beginning kills theres no time to get a ballot measure ready for a June election. So the deep cuts threatened to balance Californias 15 billion budget deficit are more likely, although not inevitable. It all depends on what the Governors Plan B actually is. Joining us to discuss the continuing turmoil in Sacramento is my guest, Leo McElroy, nonpartisan political consultant, and contributor to KPBS morning edition. Leo, Good morning. MCELROY: Good morning, Maureen. How are you? CAVANAUGH: Im fine. Thank you so much for joining us today. CAVANAUGH: So why, if you could recap for us, why did the Governor break off his budget talks with state Republicans? MCELROY: Well, he was trying to pick off some Republicans who might be willing to throw a vote in in exchange for some concessions. And he was working with a group of five Republican senators who at one point or another were willing to engage with him in conversation. Apparently either the conversations were going less well than anybody thought or party discipline has intruded and the GOP five as they were called, have backed out of the fray and turned things over to party leadership. Party leaderships response has been to come in with a huge laundry list of demands that they want before they will deliver 1 or 2 votes to make the special election happen. And the laundry list was extensive enough that the governor felt that there was no way that he could get these concessions through the legislature. And so he threw up his hands and walked away from the table, and now nobodys talking to anybody. CAVANAUGH: So Leo, what friday the 13th a new beginning kills does the governor have for reaching a budget agreement, lets say in the near future now that these talks have fallen apart? MCELROY: Very few, and none of them pleasant. MCELROY: Legislative Democrats are now starting to face the fact that they may have to pass pay budget on their own without a Republican vote, which they now can do. Thats been amended. But they cant raise money to balance that been, so they may have to face a really ugly all cuts budget. And nobodys happy about that. Of the people who are going to suffer the cuts, the people who are going to be shown what bad shape the state is in, and the politicians who are gonna take the blame for the cuts. Nobody likes this.