It’s all about timing.  A new crop of lawmakers will be sworn in December first.  But Schwarzenegger Press Secretary Aaron McLear says the Governor won’t wait until then to call lawmakers back to work on the budget.  It’s an estimated three billion dollars in the red – and it could get worse.  So the same lawmakers who fought all summer over a spending plan would be coming back in November to try to stop the bleeding.  That would likely be through cuts or taxes.  At an unrelated news conference Governor Schwarzenegger said a special session was necessary:

“I think that it is the best thing that you can do, because we don’t want to wait until new year (sic) until we fix some of the problems that need to be fixed, to help the economy and to help the people get jobs again and so on.”

Schwarzenegger said he’d expect an economic stimulus plan and the housing crisis to be part of any special session discussion.  The Senate Republican Leader says he welcomes a special session on the budget.  The Democratic Assembly Speaker says before the Governor calls lawmakers back to Sacramento, leaders should already have worked out a proposal to balance the budget.