Assembly OK of Budget Uncertain : Finances: For very different reasons, Democrats and some Republicans could end up in an alliance to derail Wilson’s budget deal with legislative leaders.

SACRAMENTO — An hour after Gov. Pete Wilson announced that he had reached a state budget deal with legislative leaders, Assembly Democrats met privately in a lounge off the Assembly floor. The upshot: Not a single Democrat was willing to vote for the spending plan.

But as Wilson tries to get a budget for the 1995-1996 fiscal year that started 28 days ago, the governor’s troubles extend across the aisle of the Assembly chamber to where his fellow Republicans sit. Several say they won’t vote for the budget, given that it contains $40 million for abortions for poor women and as much as $170 million for various family planning programs.

While the state Senate probably will approve the budget Saturday, the Assembly is a big question mark. In the lower house, Democrats and Republicans have agreed on virtually nothing all year. For very different reasons, they could end up in a weird alliance to derail Wilson’s budget deal.

“Whether or not we get two-thirds is an open question,” Assembly Republican Leader Jim Brulte said Thursday, referring to the majority needed to approve the budget. “If there aren’t 54 votes for this budget in the Assembly . . . then the budget process starts at ground zero.”

Democrats control 39 seats and Republicans 40, with one vacancy. Since the budget needs a two-thirds vote, either party, or factions within the parties, can stop a budget.

“We don’t have to bond with them,” Assemblyman Curtis Tucker Jr. (D-Inglewood) said of the anti-abortion Republicans. “A novote is a no vote.”

Many Democrats do not like the budget because they say it cuts welfare too deeply, while Los Angeles Democrats, who number 16 in the Assembly, say the deal forged by Wilson and the Senate and Assembly leaders does virtually nothing to help fill Los Angeles County’s $1.2-billion budget hole.

“There will not be 54 votes for it,” Assemblywoman Sheila J. Kuehl (D-Santa Monica) said. “It’s going to be a very, very rough year to find agreement.”

Kuehl is among the Los Angeles-area lawmakers who are demanding more help for Los Angeles County, but see little or nothing in the current proposal that helps the county.

So far, the Los Angeles Democrats are holding firm, and the governor has not started making calls to lawmakers lobbying them to vote for his $56-billion budget.

Wilson and his supporters “won’t start coming until you vote their budget down,” Assemblyman Antonio Villaraigosa (D-Los Angeles) said.

Wilson, speaking to television reporters Thursday, called the budget “very fair,” citing the increased funding he is giving to public schools. “If they [Democrats] want to sit here all summer and hypocritically say we shouldn’t cut welfare but . . . demand more for education, then I say we should spend more for investing in education,” Wilson said.

The governor and his aides may have to make some of those calls to members of Wilson’s own party. Assemblyman Bruce Thompson (R-Fallbrook) has counted as many as 18 Republicans who will vote against any budget that contains money for abortions, except when the mother’s life is in danger or if the pregnancy is a result of rape or incest.

“I made it clear again and again and again [in leadership meetings with Wilson] that if we could not put the abortion money outside the budget, then it put a number of Republican votes at risk,” Brulte said.

Anti-abortion Republicans such as Assemblyman George House (R-Hughson) like most of the budget, but want abortion money carved out and carried in a separate bill attached to the spending plan.

“I have a real conscience problem on this,” House said.

Wilson is one of the few pro-choice Republicans running for President, and is not likely to agree to tinker with abortion funding. But if he did take the abortion money out of the budget, Democrats, most of whom support abortion rights, would have another reason to oppose it.

Meanwhile, Democrats continued to look for more money to ease the impact of the cuts in various social programs. Assemblyman John Vasconcellos (D-Santa Clara) proposed a variety of ideas, including selling surplus state property and cutting administration to soften welfare cuts.

Assembly Democratic Leader Willie Brown is pushing an extra 17-cent-per-pack tax on cigarettes to pay for health care for the poor. Such a tax would give counties an extra $278 million a year.

However, few Republicans would support the tax, and it is also one that Brown probably would not have pushed a few years ago.