Rebel Democrats Join GOP to Block Governor’s Budget

Rebel Democrats known as the “Gang of Five” joined Republicans on Thursday in blocking passage of the Assembly’s $45.1-billion version of Gov. George Deukmejian’s budget after failing in a series of votes to amend the spending plan.

The budget, needing 54 votes, or a two-thirds majority, went down 49 to 26. Only 12 Republicans joined 37 Democrats in voting for the budget.

The defeat does not mean that the state will not have a budget for the new fiscal year that begins July 1. Even if the spending plan had passed, it would have gone to a two-house conference committee for further negotiations. At best, lawmakers are still weeks away from adopting a final version of the budget. The Legislature’s deadline for adoption of a budget is June 15.

But the vote could signal problems ahead because it comes at a time when the governor and Republican and Democratic leaders are grappling with a $2.3-billion gap in the budget.

Deukmejian has proposed $800 million in tax increases and $450 million in budget cuts to help solve the problem.

Keeping Their Distance

But so far both Republicans and Democrats have been distancing themselves from Deukmejian’s budget-balancing plan. Deukmejian cannot find a Republican author for his tax increase proposal. And Democrats responded to the governor’s call for budget cuts by putting together rival versions of the budget that would increase state spending by as much as $600 million over what Deukmejian has proposed.

The budget vote Thursday reflects even deeper divisions.

Before the vote on the main budget bill, Republican lawmakers introduced eight amendments to the spending plan. The amendments would have blocked state funding for abortions in the Medi-Cal program, sex education in public schools and state support for family planning programs that offer abortion counseling. Other amendments would have wiped out about $60 million in “pork barrel” spending projects backed by Democrats and would have added $66.5 million in general purpose aid for school districts with large numbers of economically disadvantaged students.

Some of the Republican lawmakers who refused to vote for the main budget bill said they were furious that Democrats defeated each of the amendments.

Nothing Negotiated

“They didn’t take one amendment. We didn’t get one thing negotiated, not one thing,” said Assemblywoman Doris Allen (R-Cypress), author of the amendment to add $66.5 million in aid for school districts.

But the votes were close enough so that Republicans believe they may have better luck Monday. Three Republican legislators were excused because of illness Thursday, and GOP lawmakers said they hope the absent members will be back in the Capitol on Monday.

Assembly Speaker Willie Brown (D-San Francisco) said: “That’s part of the business. You really have to be ready to lose. If you lose you lose, if you win you win.”

Brown said Deukmejian should be embarrassed because he could not produce enough Republican votes to get the budget out.

The Speaker said he expects the budget process to continue. He said he still anticipates that the Senate will send the Assembly a version of the budget that can be used to get two-house conference committee negotiations under way.

Gang of Five members, who are challenging Brown’s leadership of the Assembly, said they were disappointed that they were on the losing side of the votes on the budget amendments, but did not indicate that they would vote for the budget even if the amendments had passed.

Assemblyman Rusty Areias (D-Los Banos) said, “The budget is so badly out of balance at this point that I don’t know if even the amendments would have helped.”

Areias and other Gang of Five members said they want to see the governor’s tax proposal before they make a commitment to vote for the budget.

Assemblyman Gary A. Condit (D-Ceres) said that Democratic budget writers should have cut spending instead of proposing increases. “Instead of looking at ways to balance the budget, they augmented it by hundreds of millions. That doesn’t make sense,” he said.

An analysis of the Assembly budget by the legislative analyst showed that it is now $619 million over the budget proposed by Deukmejian. It would increase spending by 8.1%.

Democratic budget writers in the Assembly added $25 million for community mental health programs, $54.4 million to restore Deukmejian-proposed cuts in welfare benefit increases, $22.2 million in extra funding for AIDS research and treatment programs, $26.3 million for public schools and $157.3 million more for state employee pay raises.

In addition, the budget writers dropped Deukmejian’s proposed $600-million budget reserve to $71 million.

Assemblyman Bill Leonard (R-Redlands), the only Republican who heads a subcommittee of the Assembly Ways and Means Committee, which drafted the budget, was one of the GOP lawmakers who refused to vote for the spending plan.

“We didn’t even make a serious effort to balance the budget,” he said.