State elections officials say lawmakers and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger are jeopardizing the success of the November election - and voting rights of troops serving abroad - the longer they wait to put a potential budget measures on the fall ballot.
"The secretary of state continues to remind lawmakers that every day they dawdle they are gambling with the success of the presidential election," said Kate Folmar, a spokeswoman for Secretary of State Debra Bowen.
Since early this year, Schwarzenegger has cast a ballot measure overhauling California's budgeting system as the linchpin of budget negotiations. Those talks have now dragged on nearly two months into the fiscal year, as the state faces a $15.2 billion deficit.
Missing the November ballot deadline, Schwarzenegger's office has said, could lead to a "total meltdown" for discussions that have stumbled from the start.
Because lawmakers make the laws, they can waive or rewrite much of the state's elections code. That means there is no clarity as to an absolute deadline for adding a proposition to the fall ballot.
"I'm not sure," said Assembly Speaker Karen Bass, D-Los Angeles, when asked about the deadline. "Ask Bowen."
Bowen's office, which previously gave an Aug. 16 deadline estimate, referred the question back to the Legislature.
"No one in this building seems to know," said Aaron McLear, a Schwarzenegger spokesman, of the deadline. "It is upon us."
Elections officials say the state is running up against real-world deadlines for printing, stuffing and mailing out ballots without disenfranchising Californians serving overseas.
Next Friday, September 5, is the first day election officials expect to mail international ballots to California military men and women.
If lawmakers' ballot negotiations drag on past that date, "We're not serving the military vote," said Jill LaVine, the registrar of voters in Sacramento County. "We want to make sure that the military gets their ballots."
That makes Assemblyman Paul Cook, a Yucca Valley Republican and former Marine colonel, "very worried."
"I think people who are in harm's way serving our country (should) get a chance to exercise one of their most important constitutional duties," said Cook. "I feel very strongly about it."
Assemblyman Chuck DeVore, an Irvine Republican who retired as a lieutenant colonel in the Army National Guard, added, "You can't be abrogating voting rights of the men and women who are serving us overseas. That's just a fundamental issue."
Registrars across the state have already prepared their ballots, though they haven't sent them to the printer, said LaVine. They were awaiting Sen. John McCain's announcement - made today - of a vice presidential nominee.
But slipping the VP's name into a prepared slot on the ballot is very different than writing, structuring, and translating a brand new measure, election officials say.
"Building a ballot isn't something that can be done in minutes," said Rebecca Martinez, the registrar in Madera County and president of the California Association of Clerks and Election Officials. "It's a big deal because you have to be sure that it is perfect."
Martinez was careful not to name a drop-dead date for adding measures to the ballot, though she said, "September is almost out of the question."
Adding a measure at this late date "would pose a tremendous problem for Los Angeles," said Martinez of the state's largest county, where the ballots are translated in multiple languages.
LaVine, the Sacramento registrar, said, "This weekend is what I'd like (at the latest) to be able to feel good about a successful November election."
The state Senate has scheduled a budget vote for this morning, though it is unclear if the spending plan will garner the necessary two-thirds majority for passage.
The governor and legislative leaders, who haven't convened a Big Five meeting in more than a week, are already looking toward "Plan B" - a 2009 special election. That would cost millions of dollars.
"With several big cities having mayoral elections next year, it might not be all that expensive," said Bass earlier this week. Los Angeles has a mayoral election in early 2009.
With next Friday's date for military ballots looming, a special election looks increasingly likely, should lawmakers and the governor want to include government reforms as part of a budget deal.
"The best that I can tell it," said Martinez, "is that each day that they wait they are jeopardizing the success of this election."
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