Frustrated at the Legislature's annual inability to pass a state budget on time, the California Grange – the state's oldest agricultural fraternal group – is pondering an initiative that would not only block lawmakers from being paid when a budget is late, but fine them for it, too.

"I think it will pass," said Michael Greene, director of legislative affairs for the Grange. "We think there are really a lot of people out there who have been adversely affected with the budget being late year after year."

Delegates to the 10,000-member group's 136th annual meeting in Sacramento in two weeks will vote on whether to pursue placing an initiative before voters at a special election next year or at a regular election in 2010.

Under terms of the proposed constitutional amendment, which would take the signatures of 694,354 registered voters to qualify:

• The governor and each legislator would forfeit "all salary, benefits and living expenses" for every day after June 30 that the state budget was late in being approved. None of the money would be paid retroactively.

• If the delay ran past July 15, the governor and legislators would each be fined $500 a day until the budget was enacted. Elected officials couldn't use campaign funds or other sources to pay the fines. Instead, the fines would be deducted from salaries due the officials after the budget was done.

• The forfeited pay and fines would go into a disaster assistance fund, the revenues of which go to help families and individuals who incur losses in a disaster.

Under current law, legislators, constitutional officers and their staffs are not paid past July 1 if a budget is not in place, but get the money retroactively once a spending plan is signed.

The state constitution already mandates that legislators approve a budget by June 15, but there is no specified penalty for not meeting that deadline, and lawmakers have ignored it 27 times in the past 31 years. The governor has signed a state budget by July 1, the start of the state's fiscal year, only four times since 1987.

A spokesman for Assembly Speaker Karen Bass, D-Los Angeles, met the idea with scorn.

"The notion that legislators would act faster if it was in their financial self-interest to pass a budget is felony stupid," said Steve Maviglio in an e-mail.

"The Republicans that hold the budget hostage year after year are mostly millionaires. If the Grange was serious about getting a budget passed on time, they'd back an initiative that overturns the two-third majority necessary for the passage of a budget, not a gimmick like this."

Greene said the proposed amendment is identical to an effort the Grange backed in 1993, but that failed to qualify for the ballot.

That time, the organization relied solely on volunteers to collect signatures. This time, he said, it would combine volunteers with paid signature gatherers.

Greene also said that if Grange delegates approve the idea, the group would seek to form alliances with those directly affected by the delays, such as public employees and vendors who do business with the state.

"We're optimistic that if we beat the bushes hard enough with some high-profile state organizations, we will be able to raise a sufficient amount of money to get the thing done," he said.

The state Grange is part of a national organization that was founded in 1867 as an agricultural fraternal group that represented farmers' political interests as well as serving as the social center of many rural areas.

Greene said that while the state Grange "styles itself an apolitical organization, it does get involved in issues, and this is certainly a public interest issue."

"We think it's consistent with the Grange's history, and we are going to do the best we can do to get it done."

Call Steve Wiegand, Bee Capitol Bureau, (916) 321-1076.