The California State Budget: Comments From Speaker of the Assembly Fabian Nunez Late Last Night

[courtesy of California Progress Report]

By Frank D. Russo

About 10:30 p.m. last night, Speaker Nunez came out of the door of his office and answered questions from a dozen or so reporters. This is a transcript of what the Speaker said John Myers of KQED asked the first question. The question I asked and the answer I received, has been bolded.

Where did it all fall apart?

I'm getting a taste of what Senator Perata has been dealing with in this . But I will tell you --I want to reiterate what I said to you when I walked out of the Big Five meeting--because, I really meant it. I don't mean to bad mouth Senate Republicans, and at the time I said that I take back everything negative I said about Senate Republicans. And I want to be consistent with that.

There are some differences, obviously that wee expressed at the Big Five meeting, but my understanding when we walked out of that meeting is that we had an agreement on the budget. And in fact we had one.

Some time between the time that I walked from the governor[s office out the door to come upstairs and the time I walked outside, he [Ackerman] changed his mind or had second thoughts about what he had agreed to. So, I'll give him that.

We've reconvened. We talked about some of the new concerns that were raised. We're going to try to address those concerns. And I'll do the best we can to get the budget done at some part tomorrow. Let me reiterate that--to the best we can.

Why did you not get the budget done to Mr. Ackerman's satisfaction?

[Another voice] The problem, Mr. Speaker, is it CEQA?

Again, I think the issues continue to be surface issues as I describe them. Less substantive from the standpoint of me and my caucus, perhaps more substantive from Mr. Ackerman and his caucus' standpoint. But I think that the main thing to know is that from the perspective of the budget that the Assembly passed, there are no changes to that budget, maybe a change to one sentence to the budget on the health and human services trailer bill, but outside of that, it's the same budget.