A top GOP official has submitted a resolution for the Republican Party's convention later this month to formally censure any Republican who votes for new or higher taxes in a state budget deal.

"If the Republican party loses the ability to say that we're the party against higher taxes, then we've been dealt a grievous blow," said Jon Fleischman, author of the resolution and a Southern California vice chairman in the California Republican Party.

Fleischman, who publishes the conservative FlashReport Web site, said the resolution is meant as a "stick" to dissuade GOP legislators from agreeing to any budget with higher taxes crafted with majority Democrats and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

"I think it is fair to say that if you are a Republican and, between now and the February convention, you vote for tax increases, you are likely to be censured by your party and cast out among the unwanted," he said.

The proposed censure comes less than a week after one union leader threatened recall campaigns against any legislator who votes to roll back labor protections as part of a budget deal.

Similarly, the GOP censure resolution calls for the freeing up of Republican Party funds to defeat "these pro-tax Republican legislators in primaries, and in general elections."

The state GOP faithful are set to gather for their semi-annual convention in Sacramento on Feb. 20.

Legislative leaders and Schwarzenegger have been negotiating behind closed doors to address the state's roughly $40 billion budget hole through July 2010.

There has been growing pressure from both ends of the political spectrum – organized labor on the left, conservative activists on the right – not to compromise core principles.

Assembly Speaker Karen Bass, D-Los Angeles, derided the censure resolution as "blackmail."

"The Republican Party seems to value followership more than leadership," she said in a statement.

Assembly GOP leader Mike Villines, Senate GOP leader Dave Cogdill and Senate leader Darrell Steinberg did not return a call for comment.

For months, Democrats and Schwarzenegger have proposed a combination of tax hikes and spending cuts to close the budget deficit. So far Republicans, many of whom signed pledges to never raise taxes, have refused to go along.

But that opposition has appeared to soften in recent weeks.

Business groups are advocating new broad-based taxes, instead of none at all, and GOP lawmakers are signaling a willingness to talk.

"I'm going to express enough flexibility so that the other side will know that, as for me, if they express flexibility on those things that I think are important, I'm going to express flexibility on those things that they think are important," Assemblyman Roger Niello, a Fair Oaks Republican and vice chairman of the Budget Committee, told The Bee on Jan. 22.

If Republicans do vote for taxes, Patrick Dorinson, a former communications director for the California Republican Party, said of the censure resolution, "There's enough anger out there that something like this could pass."

Fleischman, the resolution's sponsor, is a passionate advocate for limited government.

"State government needs to do less, with less," he wrote on his Web site on Monday.

But Dorinson said he did not like the censure tactic, calling it self- defeating for Republicans.

"This kind of stuff reminds me of the fellow, who is not too bright, who walks into his bedroom and sees his wife with another man," Dorinson said. "Then he points the gun at his own head. His wife and the guy start laughing. And the guy says, 'What are you laughing at? You're next.' "

"It seems like we're attacking ourselves," he added.

Call Shane Goldmacher, Bee Capitol Bureau, (916) 326-5544.