Deadline Passes Without Budget : Spending: Assembly, Senate defeat $53.3-billion plan in vote along party lines. Sales tax extension, shift of revenues are key obstacles as negotiations resume today.

The Legislature missed its constitutional budget deadline Tuesday as legislators rejected a budget that would cut welfare, eliminate a tax break for renters and retire the state’s deficit by extending an extra half-cent sales tax.

Legislative budget negotiators planned to meet again today in an effort to resolve differences, and the Assembly scheduled a session for tonight in case the conflicts are resolved.

With the June 15 constitutional deadline for passing a budget upon them, the 80-seat Assembly fell 10 votes short of the required two-thirds majority, turning down the legislative version of the budget by a 44-32 vote. The Senate took the budget up next and fell 6 votes short of the two-thirds majority, voting 21 to 13. Both votes were along partisan lines with most Democrats favoring the plan and all Republicans opposed.

It was the seventh consecutive year that the Legislature has broken the deadline. There is no penalty for missing it, although state finances can be affected by a stalemate after July 1, the beginning of the fiscal year.

Asked what it would take to get a budget approved, Assembly Speaker Willie Brown said: “Get Pete Wilson out of the closet, lobbying Republicans to vote for the budget.”

“At some point, people will wake up to reality and put their biases aside,” said Assemblyman John Vasconcellos (D-Santa Clara), the chief architect of the budget proposal. “Everyone but these folks here (in the Capitol) seem to understand what it takes to get California back to work.”

The complex $53.3-billion spending plan drafted by an Assembly-Senate conference committee faced united Republican opposition. All Assembly and Senate Republicans voted against it.

Two Assembly Democrats--Debra Bowen of Marina del Rey and Tom Connolly of Lemon Grove--voted against it. In the Senate, the sole Democrat to vote against it was Tom Hayden of Santa Monica.

Republican and Democratic legislators have found common ground in many areas but remain split over major issues, such as whether to extend what was supposed to be a temporary half-cent sales tax increase for a year or more and whether to shift $1.2 billion in local property tax money from cities and counties to schools.

“That’s like saying, ‘I’ve got this great house, but it’s on fire, it’s built on a fault and the bank is moving in to repossess it,’ ” said Sen. Mike Thompson (D-St. Helena).

Despite the votes Tuesday night, few legislators expected the fight to become as bitter or protracted as last year’s budget war, when Gov. Pete Wilson and the Legislature were at an impasse for more than two months.

Several legislators who voted against the bill went out of their way to praise Vasconcellos for his work.

“This is step in the right direction,” said Paul A. Woodruff (R-Moreno Valley). “We’ve got a little ways to go.”

Even as there was talk of compromise, Wilson communications director Dan Schnur ruffled Brown and his staff when he violated the lower house’s rules by appearing on the Assembly floor after the vote and speaking to reporters. At the direction of Brown’s chief of staff, sergeants at arms told him to leave.

Sen. Frank Hill (R-Whittier), among the main mediators for last year’s budget, predicted that the Democratic-controlled Legislature would ultimately produce a budget close to what Wilson wants. But such a spending plan will exact such pain, particularly in local governments, that it will cause Wilson grave political damage, he forecast.

“They’re going to give the governor all the rope he needs to hang himself,” Hill said.

Several legislators said they viewed June 20 as the next key deadline. That is when the state tax collectors must begin notifying retail businesses if the temporary half-cent sales tax is not to expire June 30 as scheduled.

Wilson has agreed to support extending the half-cent tax for another six months. The Democratic-controlled budget committee recommended extending the tax for at least another year to pay off California’s growing $2.9-billion budget deficit.

Earlier in the day, Assemblywoman Bowen and 17 other members of the Assembly objected to a portion of the Vasconcellos proposal that failed to delete $250 million from the Department of Corrections budget earmarked for the incarceration of illegal immigrants. Those legislators favor turning illegal immigrant felons over to the federal government for imprisonment or deportation.

At the same time, Republicans demanded that $60 million be trimmed from the Medi-Cal budget. That money was earmarked for prenatal care for women who are illegal immigrants. In general, illegal immigrants are ineligible for Medi-Cal, but an exception is provided for prenatal care.

The budget committee reconvened and made those two cuts, opening the way for the budget that went to the floor Tuesday night.

Vasconcellos said in an interview that although he detested the cut for pregnant women, he believed that the care would still be given at government expense by other means.

The legislative version of the budget envisions a 4.2% cut in the general fund, down to $39.6 billion from last year’s level of $41.2 billion. It would guarantee public school funding at this year’s level--$4,209 per student, including state and local funds.

The proposal also includes extending the temporary half-cent sales tax for at least a year, and would transfer $1.2 billion from counties, cities and local governments to schools.

It would also boost community college fees by $2, to $12 per unit, loan the colleges about $250 million and provide the state’s two university systems with $50 million each more than proposed by Wilson.

The Legislature’s budget is $1.3 billion more than the governor’s most recent proposal, largely because the legislative proposal envisions shifting $1.2 billion in property taxes from local government, while Wilson would shift $2.6 billion.

In Orange County, meanwhile, supervisors voted unanimously to support a policy of ignoring any Wilson order to take the $2.6 billion from counties and cities.

“During frustrating times like this, our county must take this type of action,” Supervisor Thomas F. Riley said before initiating the board action.

The stalemate in Sacramento also halted Los Angeles County’s grim budget deliberations.

The County Board of Supervisors was presented Tuesday with its staff’s $12.3-billion spending plan--including $1.6 billion in budget cuts--but the matter was tabled for a week in hopes that the state would resolve its problems without making further cuts in revenues for local jurisdictions.

In related action at the Capitol, the Senate Judiciary Committee voted unanimously to approve a bill by Sen. Art Torres (D-Los Angeles) that would order the state Department of Corrections to immediately turn over any illegal immigrant felons to federal authorities.

The Immigration and Naturalization Service would hold the felons in custody but deportation would be subject to an order by a federal judge, thus taking the responsibility out of California’s hands.

Based on a legislative study, Torres estimated that there are 15,000 illegal immigrants in California prisons, costing state taxpayers $350 million a year.

Asked what assurance he had that federal immigration authorities would accept undocumented felons who were handed over, Torres said: “They must do so. This guy is undocumented. He’s here illegally. He’s yours,” he said, meaning U.S. federal authorities.

“We simply shift the responsibility and then let them worry about (deporting foreign felons), and while they are worrying about it, let them pay for it.”