Governor calls special session

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger was back today, calling yet again on Republicans and Democrats to compromise on a plan to close the state's enormous budget shortfall. Mike Zapler in the Mercury News.

For the second time in as many months, the Republican governor announced a special emergency session of the Legislature to deal with California's deficit, which amounts to as much as $11.2 billion over the next seven months and $28.2 billion through mid-2010. A special budget session that he called last month ended in the same stalemate between the parties that has endured all year.

"Without immediate action, our state is headed for a fiscal disaster," Schwarzenegger said this afternoon during a news conference in his Los Angeles office.