Capri & Clay: A new year is upon us and the legislature has returned for the last year of the two-year session. We are anticipating the Assembly electing a new speaker on Thursday, January 7th – Assembly member John Perez, a freshman from Los Angeles. We are also anticipating the Governor’s release of the budget on Friday, January 8th. Hopefully the Governor’s State of the State, which will be on Wednesday, January 6th, will provide some insight for the coming year, although we are sure we can anticipate more of the same with massive budget deficits and partisan gridlock especially with it being an election year. We have already heard that the Governor intends to call a special session to confront the $6.3 billion budget gap in the current fiscal year.