Gov. Gray Davis and his supporters are mounting campaigns to press lawmakers to come to a quick budget deal, with seven days remaining until a constitutional deadline for the Legislature to adopt a budget agreement and no apparent consensus in sight.

A coalition of schools groups -- who stand to fare relatively well in the Davis budget plan -- is preparing to launch a pricey statewide ad blitz urging voters to put pressure on legislators to accept the governor's blueprint by the Father's Day deadline.

Meanwhile, top-level Davis administration officials fanned out across California on Sunday for town hall meetings on the budget with religious groups.

The state constitution requires that a budget be approved by a previously loosely followed June 15 deadline. But, despite dire warnings from finance officials and Wall Street investment firms, the scenario seemed remote with one week to go as a two-house committee continued on Sunday to slog through a 300-plus-page book of routine budget disagreements between the two legislative houses.
The six-member conference committee missed a self imposed Sunday deadline and chairwoman Assemblywoman Jenny Oropeza, D-Long Beach, said the group plans to meet again Tuesday.

The committee that usually shapes a final budget agreement, however, is not taking up the largest and most politically important issues facing lawmakers attempting to fill a budget hole expected to approach up to $40 billion. The large gulfs between Democrats and Republicans are being discussed behind closed doors among the so-called Big Five, the top four legislative leaders and Davis.

Still outstanding are discussions among top legislative leaders and Davis over $8 billion in proposed tax increases and a plan to roll over $10 billion of the state's deficit by selling five-year bonds and using a slice of the tax hike proceeds to pay them off.

Still, education groups plan to announce today a $1 million advertising campaign that will include print ads and direct-mail appealing to voters demand an on-time budget.

"There is a waiting game that is getting dangerously close," said Kevin Gordon, executive director of the California Association of School Business Officials. "I don't think we've ever had a time when we felt that a June 15 budget was more critical because every knows that the state is broke."

Indeed, financial firms have indicated that the state is on perhaps its most fragile financing footing ever, and have implored lawmakers to enact a budget on-time that wipes away the state's red ink and deals with structural problems in the state's budget and tax systems that caused it.

Controller Steve Westly, who negotiated a deal for state government to borrow $11 billion to continue to pay its operating bills through the summer, also has called it crucial that lawmakers approve a budget on time to prevent the state from running out of cash and damaging its ability to borrow money in the future.

Republicans, who charge that Davis and the Democrat-led Legislature overspent during boom times, have said they will oppose any plan that includes tax hikes. Democrats, meanwhile, are divided over billions in cuts to health care programs and social services included in the Davis plan, and some are calling for larger tax increases to offset deep cuts.

Though Democrats hold majorities in both chambers of the Legislature, a handful of GOP votes is needed to achieve the two-thirds threshold required for a state budget.

"We are billions, and not one or two, we are many billions in dollars in spending away from a budget that has the opportunity to get Republican support," said the committee vice chairman, Assemblyman John Campbell, R-Irvine.

Last week, Senate Republican leader Jim Brulte issued a warning that could prolong a standoff: He promised to campaign against the re-election of any GOP lawmakers who supports a budget containing tax increases.