Assembly Rejects GOP Budget Plan

SACRAMENTO -- During a rare Sunday night legislative session, Democrats voted down a Republican budget plan that sought to close California’s multibillion-dollar budget shortfall without raising taxes.

The 45-27 vote against the GOP plan followed party lines. In an unusual breach of GOP solidarity, a total of five Republicans abstained. One Democrat also abstained, and two members were not present.

Assemblyman Abel Maldonado (R-Santa Maria) said he opposed his party’s plan because the education cuts were too harsh. “When I applied for this job, I didn’t tell the folks of my district I was going to cut education,” he said. “There are pieces in [the plan] I just can’t support.”

Though the Republicans had detailed some proposed spending cuts, the measure introduced Sunday offered the most complete blueprint yet for how the GOP would achieve enough savings to wipe out a $38 billion shortfall.

The Republican plan would cut all state funding for abortions. It would do away with the Seismic Safety Commission, whose role is to protect the public from earthquake hazards. And it would reduce by 60% the budget for the California Youth Authority, the agency responsible for disciplining youthful offenders.

Other cuts included eliminating health care clinics for American Indians (saving $6.5 million); withholding the $50 monthly payment to poor, blind men and women to help feed their seeing-eye dogs; doing away with medical evaluation of low-income children ($51 million); and ending a program that pays for the burial of foster children.

“At the core of your proposal is the refusal of any tax whatsoever,” Assembly Speaker Herb J. Wesson, Jr. (D-Culver City) said on the floor. “To carry out that vision, you are willing to deny medical coverage to sick children. To carry out that vision, you are willing to eliminate proper burials for foster children. To carry out that vision, you are willing to close shelters for abused women and their families.”

He added: “You would do all of that before you would ask a millionaire to pay a penny more in taxes.”

From the early stages of what proved to be a rancorous debate Sunday, it seemed clear that the GOP plan was not likely to end the budget stalemate.

“This is the only plan that seriously addresses wasteful spending,” Assemblyman Tim Leslie (R-Tahoe City) told his colleagues on the floor. In a remark directed at Democrats, he added: “You’ve botched the surplus and put us into a massive deficit.”

Assemblywoman Rebecca Cohn (D-Saratoga) said of the Republican spending plan: “Where’s the compassion in this? Where are your priorities?”

To date, Republicans and Democrats have sparred largely through press releases and rival news conferences. The weekend meeting of the Assembly amounted to the first time the GOP plan for settling the budget impasse came up for legislative debate.

After convening at 4 p.m., the Assembly quickly recessed so that each party could meet privately and consider strategy for the floor session that followed.

Asked whether Sunday’s meeting was a sign the two sides were nearing a consensus, Wesson told reporters before ducking into the Democratic caucus: “No. It’s a sign that we’re desperate.”

From the first, the Republicans have resisted new taxes, while Democrats have opposed deeper spending cuts. How far apart do the two sides remain? Wesson was asked. The speaker answered with a question of his own: “How far is it from here to Cleveland, Ohio?”

In earlier news conferences, the Republicans called for closing the shortfall in part by:

* Cutting elementary school education by more than $1 billion a year. The savings would come partly from postponing children’s enrollment in kindergarten.

* Lopping $450 million from the state prison system.

* Withholding from the University of California and California State University systems a sum of money that each would need to run a large campus.

Times staff writer Virginia Ellis contributed to this report.