Lawmakers turned down another state budget plan Tuesday, then blocked a stopgap measure to fund programs while the political debate drags on.
As California's state budget impasse enters its record-breaking 72nd day, Republican lawmakers have repeatedly called on Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Democrats to approve emergency funding for some programs for which money ran out July 1.
On Tuesday, as the Assembly was rejecting the same Republican budget plan the Senate defeated the previous day, Democrats once again turned down the request for emergency funding.
The exercise has become routine in the Legislature as stories of disrupted state health care services and vendors facing bankruptcy have mounted.
"We have called for an emergency resolution to fund those people," Assembly GOP leader Mike Villines of Clovis told Democrats during Tuesday's debate.
"We will vote right on this floor, in the next 30 seconds, if you will bring it."
While so-called continuing resolutions are common in Congress, they've rarely been used in the Legislature and are opposed by Democrats and Schwarzenegger.
Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata, D-Oakland, said doing so would add to the state's debt. Schwarzenegger said recently that he wants lawmakers to pass a budget – not a temporary solution.
"We have seen temporary solutions all the way since 2003," he said, referring to a structural budget gap the Legislature has failed to address.
The GOP budget plan defeated Tuesday would have cut programs more deeply than Schwarzenegger or Democrats have proposed and would have borrowed from future lottery revenues to close the state's $15.2 billion deficit.
The Assembly was scheduled to vote on Schwarzenegger's own plan today. That vote was postponed to allow the governor to meet separately – and privately – with the Democratic and Republican caucuses.
Call Aurelio Rojas, Bee Capitol Bureau, (916) 326-5545.
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