The California Supreme Court granted our petition for review in St. John’s v. Schwarzenegger, thus agreeing to decide the case on its merits.  St. John’s arose out of last year’s budget crisis.  The Legislature enacted a budget in January.   The Governor called an emergency session in July, at which the Legislature passed a bill reducing the appropriations for many social services, such as heath and domestic violence clinics.  The Governor purported to reduce appropriations for those items even further and Western Center and co-counsel have challenged those additional reductions.  Though the Governor has the constitutional “line item veto” authority to reduce individual appropriations, the question in St. John’s is whether a reduction in an existing appropriation is an appropriation itself subject to the line item veto.  We filed suit in the Court of Appeal, which agreed to hear the case but then ruled against us.  The Supreme Court has now granted review, which sets in motion a briefing schedule, then oral argument.  From granting review to oral argument takes an average of about a year.