Latest Bid to Pass Budget Thwarted

In another failed bid to win Republican support for the California budget, Assembly Democrats added millions of dollars for rural police to the plan and a few of them even engaged in a clandestine operation.

Assemblyman Mike Briggs (R-Fresno) said he was floating along the Sacramento River in his houseboat Saturday afternoon when a speedboat pulled up next to him.

“It looked like one of those James Bond boats carrying these guys with neckties,” Briggs said. “They boarded my vessel in an attempt to get me to vote for the budget.”

Briggs identified his surprise visitors as Assemblymen Herb Wesson (D-Culver City), Dennis Cardoza (D--Merced) and Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento).

“We took a boat ride,” Steinberg said. “We wanted to talk to him, that’s all.”

The boating rendezvous was one of a variety of ways that Assembly Democrats attempted Saturday to gain Republican support for the proposed 2001-02 budget. Republicans, who are demanding an extension of a quarter-cent cut of the state sales tax, have refused to back the spending plan.

The budget failed in the Assembly for a fourth time Saturday on a 52-27 vote. The standoff over the $101-billion document, which was supposed to be signed by Gov. Gray Davis by the start of the new fiscal year on July 1, is set to enter its third week.

Saturday’s vote showed that Democrats have secured two of the four Republican votes needed to approve the document. They picked up the vote of Assemblyman Anthony Pescetti (R-Rancho Cordova) by including millions of dollars for projects in his district.

The perks included $6 million in funding for the Lodi and Galt police departments and money for a senior center in Elk Grove. Funding to install stadium lighting at a high school and to purchase computer equipment at an elementary school--both located in Pescetti’s district--was also tucked into the plan.

“I have to do what is right for my constituents,” Pescetti said in an interview.

“I think it’s a big issue,” he added of the sales tax cut being sought by his Republican counterparts. “But it didn’t appear there was going to be any movement.”

Briggs said he told his visitors that he would vote for the budget as soon as the sales tax is eliminated and as long as tax breaks for agricultural communities are part of the plan.

Democrats added funding Saturday for a slew of other programs, most of them aimed at small rural communities that tend to be represented by Republicans.

They included $18 million for $500,000 grants for 36 rural and small county sheriff’s departments. They also stuck in $300,000 to help school districts located in mountain regions buy new snow-removal equipment and $8 million to aid Klamath River Basin farmers struggling with drought-stricken fields.

“We’re trying to peel off votes,” Assembly Speaker Bob Hertzberg (D-Sherman Oaks) said at a press conference. “We’re in a deadlock on the issue the Republicans are trying to argue.”

Democrats, including Davis, contend the state cannot afford an extension of the sales tax cut, which is expected to total more than $500 million, due in part to softening state revenues. Republicans contend that not only can the state afford to continue the cut but it will help the economy by keeping money in the hands of consumers.

“What is it about no new taxes you don’t understand?” Assemblyman Tony Strickland, a Moorpark Republican, asked his Democratic counterparts before Saturday’s vote.

Attention may now turn to a variety of compromise plans floating around the Capitol, including one that proposes to extend the sales tax cut through June 2002 at a cost of more than $500 million.