Impasse Frustrates Senator : State budget: Gary K. Hart says Gov. Wilson and the Legislature’s top leaders have failed to provide direction to a key committee.

Voicing deep frustration over the 42-day state budget deadlock, state Sen. Gary K. Hart says he’s never been so depressed in his 18 years as a legislator.

“I don’t see any progress at all taking place--none,” declared the discouraged Hart, whose district includes Woodland Hills.

During a Senate debate on a budget compromise Sunday night and again in an interview Monday, Hart (D-Santa Barbara) complained about the lack of leadership, even from within his own party.

Hart has had a ringside seat at many of the deliberations triggered by the Legislature’s failure to enact a spending plan for the fiscal year that began July 1. He is one of six lawmakers who sit on the joint Senate-Assembly budget conference committee charged with hammering out a budget and overcoming an $11-billion shortfall.

The veteran lawmaker said the top leadership of the Senate and Assembly and Republican Gov. Pete Wilson--collectively known as the “Big Five”--have failed to provide direction to the conference committee.

“There’s been a strange and embarrassing silence from the Big 5,” including Senate President Pro Tem David A. Roberti (D-Van Nuys), Hart said.

Hart was among 24 senators--three short of the two-thirds majority required for passage--who supported a compromise budget measure stitched together by Sen. Frank Hill (R-Whittier). The vote was 24 to 13.

“What’s depressing is to listen to the debate,” Hart said Monday. “We have a proposal by a Republican legislator that calls for significant compromise on both sides and no one else is willing to join Frank Hill on the Republican side” in the Senate.

Underscoring the wide difference of opinion on the budget, Sen. Ed Davis (R-Santa Clarita) opposed Hill’s proposal and described Sunday night’s debate as “a waste of time.” Davis said he is placing his faith in the legislative leadership, including Roberti, saying, “They’ve been making steady progress.”

But Hart said he cannot “accept the underlying premise that progress is being made.”

He noted that even Roberti acknowledged during Sunday’s session that the leadership group had failed to address a major budget sticking point: By how much will education funding be reduced?

Wilson wants to cut about $2 billion from what he proposed for schools in January. Democrats have said they would be willing to support a cut between $600 million and about $1 billion.

Roberti described the spending blueprint as “a difficult budget,” citing a proposed $850-million cut in education funds. But in the face of the budget shortfall, the Legislature cannot expect a higher level of education spending, Roberti said.

“This is as good as it gets,” he said.

The Assembly also rejected Hill’s proposal by a 46-24 margin--short of the 54 votes needed to make up two-thirds in the 80-member lower house. It was supported by San Fernando Valley Democrats Richard Katz, Tom Bane, Terry Friedman and Burt Margolin. Among Republicans, Paula Boland abstained and Cathie Wright opposed the measure.

Wright, who also sits on the budget conference committee, said she shares Hart’s frustration with the budget stalemate. But the Simi Valley lawmaker maintained that Gov. Wilson provided direction to budget writers by saying he would oppose any new taxes, deficit spending and any rollover of state debt from this year until next.

Wright said Hill “was dreaming” if he thought he could win passage for his proposal. She criticized one provision that would shift $1.7 billion from local governments to the state but would still require local authorities to provide a range of state-mandated services.

Hart said the fight over the budget does not seem to have reached the boiling point with the public, in part because relatively few people have been inconvenienced.

But on Sunday, Hart urged his colleagues--who were constitutionally required to send a budget bill to the governor by June 15--to act immediately or face a fed-up electorate.

“If we don’t take some action beginning tonight or very soon . . . we will have clearly abrogated our constitutional obligation, our oath of office,” Hart said.