Legislative leaders are sticking with the talks-are-productive narrative, but are saying little more following their most recent meeting with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.
A little past 4:30, I caught three of the four leaders as they were walking out of the governor’s Capitol office. Assembly Speaker Karen Bass said “I think we had a VERY productive day. And again we’re going through things in fine detail and staff needs some time to work and do the mathematics actually, and we will be back meeting again tomorrow. So we’re going section by section and I think that we’re doing very well. It’s very cordial, very friendly, handling difficult subjects but we’re progressing.”
I asked the speaker if she had any timetable for getting things done and she said “I think we’re definately progressing and I would guess we’re going to have about three more days of going through the fine details and then we’ll have to see where we are.”
A few moments later Assembly Republican Leader Mike Villines and Senate Republican Leader Dave Cogdill made their exit and I asked them both about seeing some resolution in three days. They scoffed that three days was “optimistic” but said little more.
That suggests Republicans might not be as on board as the Democrats, but I saw that all four leaders brought their chiefs of staff to the negotiations this afternoon, so that could indicate progress is being made.
