Schwarzenegger declares fiscal emergency

Reporting from Sacramento — Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger ordered the new Legislature into work on its first day, declaring a fiscal emergency in response to the state's deteriorating finances.

"Without immediate action, our state is headed for a fiscal disaster where everyone will be hurt," Schwarzenegger said at a news conference this afternoon in his Los Angeles office. He urged Californians to press lawmakers to "get off their rigid ideologies."

The state projects a $28-billion deficit by mid-2010, but at the current rate is on track to run out of cash by February or March.

Schwarzenegger called lawmakers back to Sacramento after they adjourned in August to deal with the same set of issues. But that emergency session ended unsuccessfully last Tuesday when a Democratic proposal to cut billions of dollars from schools, healthcare, welfare and other state services and triple vehicle license fees failed to win Republican votes necessary for passage.

Fiscal measures require the approval of two-thirds of both the Senate and Assembly, in effect giving the GOP minority veto power. But the November elections changed little in the partisan standoff: Democrats picked up two seats in the 80-member Assembly, bringing their majority to 51.

No seats changed hands in the Senate, where there are only 24 sitting Democrats because Mark Ridley-Thomas was elected to the Los Angeles Board of Supervisors, leaving a vacancy.

Of the 120 legislators, only 28 are new, and several of those have served before. "There may be a very few that are really new," Schwarzenegger said.

The fiscal emergency Schwarzenegger declared today requires the Legislature to take action within 45 days. If the lawmakers do not, they are not allowed to take action on anything else. However, as a practical matter, it is easy for lawmakers to take some minimal action to meet that threshold.

Rau and McGreevy are Times staff writers.

jordan.rau@latimes.com

patrick.mcgreevy@latimes.com