In Procedural Votes, Legislators Speed Up Budget Process

Although deep divisions remain, legislative leaders attempted to speed the state budget process Thursday by pushing Gov. Pete Wilson’s proposed $56-billion spending plan for the coming fiscal year into a joint state Senate and Assembly conference committee.

In purely procedural votes, the Senate approved its version of the budget on a 30-10 vote, and the Assembly later approved the Senate budget with amendments, returning it to the upper house.

Although the votes were procedural, legislators took the opportunity to posture. The Senate, led by Democrats, rejected Wilson’s 15% income and corporate tax cut. Republican senators tried to impose anti-abortion amendments, but Democrats, who hold a slim majority, rejected them.

The Senate’s version of the budget includes $58.5 billion in spending for the fiscal year beginning July 1.

Senate President Pro Tem Bill Lockyer attacked the amendments, saying: “The extreme right tried to use the budget process to limit the individual freedoms of California. I’m pleased that they failed.”

In the Assembly vote, only a bare majority of 41 members voted for the Senate budget, seven voted against it and the rest of the 80-member house did not vote. The Assembly will take up its version of the budget today.

Many budget details will be worked out in a conference committee that will start meeting next week. When that process ends, Republican and Democratic leaders in the Legislature will meet with Wilson to forge an agreement.

“A great deal more work needs to be done,” said Senate Republican Leader Ken Maddy of Fresno. “It is not something that I would vote for at this time if I had a choice.”

The constitutional deadline for signing the budget into law is July 1. But that deadline is often missed, and the Legislature is especially rancorous this year, suggesting that a budget deadlock could occur.