The state budget for the current year — the one that started July 1 and goes to June 30 — is sinking fast into $375 million worth of deficit quicksand and is headed who knows how much lower before someone figures out a way to lasso it. (Maybe Bill and Dave Greenwood, who do such yeoman work tracking the inexorable rise of federal debt over on Sayles Avenue in Pawtucket, can start a second line for the state budget deficit.)
And don’t even ask about next year’s budget. No one can begin to think about that until we get some sort of handle on the current crisis. Until this year hits bottom, you don’t know where to start next year off.
So is the General Assembly going to rush back into session at some point to address the financial calamity?
Nobody is saying anything more than maybe, but the way I see it, probably not.
The General Assembly is not going to come back into session until the leadership has a proposal that they will make everybody vote for. They are not going to come back and say, “What do you think we should do? Does anyone have any ideas?” That’s not going to happen.
And they are not going to come back and do nothing, because then they would look silly and ineffective.
So the legislature is not going to come back because they don’t know what to do yet. This is not a knock on them. Good ideas for what to do about this deficit are not easy to come by. Do you have any?
Put another way, legislators are not going to do anything about the budget at least until Governor Carcieri proposes a supplemental budget for the current year. That way if there are any distasteful, politically tough choices that can’t be avoided, they can at least be blamed on him.
They did that all the time last year. Asked about any proposal that was unpopular, or not working out as planned, lawmakers would never address the substance of whether it was a good idea or not, the only answer they would give to any question would be to throw up their hands and say: “that was in the governor’s original budget.”
The state constitution gives the governor the power to force the General Assembly into special session, but he can’t make them do anything once they get back. I don’t know if I would want to spend three days covering the debate on a resolution directing the governor to take a hike.
Carcieri spokeswoman Amy Kempe says the governor isn’t going to drag the lawmakers back because he and his crew are scrambling to come up with a supplemental budget. I seem to recall an old adage about how when you are up to your backside in alligators …
One thing I know for sure: I wouldn’t want to be a finance director for a city or town right now, or for a school district, either. They are going to take it in the neck in the middle of a fiscal year and the fight is going to get U-G-L-Y.

Shown the door
Speaking of Carcieri, his fight with state workers this summer and fall is bringing him benefits beyond what even he could have expected.
The rejection of that settlement agreement by the rank and file of Council 94 turned out to be only a momentary setback for the governor, even if a Superior Court judge got to tweak his nose for a time. In the end, not only did the union members end up eating an agreement that wasn’t very different from the one they spurned, but now they are so busy gnawing at each other’s throats that they barely have time or energy to criticize Carcieri.
In case you missed the news, top union officials are being shown the door by their members.
First Dennis Grilli, executive director of Council 94, was put on paid administrative leave. If that isn’t out the door, it is at least in the foyer with your coat and hat on. Lucie Burdick, who had a high-profile spot at just about every union event I have covered recently, was defeated in her bid to be re-elected as president of Local 580, SEIU. Burdick is still no doubt a labor leader of the future, but this is a setback for her. Also losing a leadership post in that vote was Kathy McElroy, the union’s second vice president. The McElroy brand is big in Rhode Island labor circles; her dad is Edward McElroy who made it to national president of the American Federation of Teachers. For a McElroy to lose a union vote is like a Kennedy losing an election in Massachusetts.
Such union disarray can only be considered a victory for Carcieri.

Changing my mind — again
Longtime readers of this column know that I go back and forth on the issue of voter initiative.
Sometimes I think it is a good and necessary idea, which is where I was the last time I wrote, seeing it as a counterweight to the ability of legislative leaders to kill an idea without a vote or even a committee vote.
Now initiative is back in my disfavor given California’s odious Proposition 8.
A California court ruled that denying marriage to gays is discrimination and Proposition 8 reversed that. Californians decided that if the state constitution prohibited them from discriminating against homosexuals, they would change the constitution rather than stop discriminating.
This is the kind of small-minded, mean-spirited, hateful, we-can-rub-your-nose-in-it-because-we-have-the-votes mentality that has always made me fear voter initiative. The civil and human rights of any individual or group should never be put to a popular vote. Never.
But they were, and the people voted to change their constitution. That cannot be brushed aside. You have to respect that, however disreputable in this instance, or self-government has no meaning.
That’s why I don’t see what the California Supreme Court can do about this.
A law can be found unconstitutional. The constitution can’t.
That’s why I’m back to thinking that voter initiative isn’t that great an idea.
At least for now.