Sacramento -- A sizable bloc of Republican lawmakers has refused to vote for a broad package of budget cuts, despite their party's mantra that reduced government spending is the key to erasing an estimated $38 billion deficit.
In Assembly votes on eight midyear budget-cutting bills approved over the past 2 1/2 months, Republican lawmakers cast more "no" votes than Democrats. Seventeen of the lower house's 32 Republicans voted "no" or didn't vote on at least one of the bills, while only three of 48 Democrats opposed a spending cut bill or abstained.
Some Republican lawmakers say they're voting their conscience, or doing what local voters want. Others say they're willing to cut fat but not bone.
Assemblyman Jay La Seur, a La Mesa conservative representing a safe GOP district in San Diego County, has voted against all budget-cutting bills.
"I said from the beginning, I will not vote to cut local government. I will not vote to cut schools. I will not cut public safety. I don't believe in cutting Medi-Cal," La Seur said.
The votes cast in March and April cut about $8 billion in spending from the current fiscal year. Republican leaders in the Assembly and Senate have proposed budgets that reject tax increases and call for broad spending cuts. The Assembly GOP plan recommends issuing bonds to finance part of the deficit, something Gov. Gray Davis incorporated into the revised 2003-2004 budget proposal he released last week.
The reluctance of some GOP lawmakers to support the budget-cutting bills is frustrating Democratic legislative leaders as they gear up for a fierce budget fight now that Davis has updated his spending plan. The Legislature faces a June 15 constitutional deadline to reach a budget deal.
"We put up cut packages and I've got members of the Republican caucus that yell, 'Cut, cut, cut.' They didn't even vote for the damn cuts," said Assembly Speaker Herb Wesson, D-Los Angeles.
Avoiding a politically unpopular vote is such a common strategy for both Democrats and Republicans that it has a name: "life-boating." The lawmaker is rescued from a potential disaster at the next election.
"Budget-cutting is popular in the abstract, not the specific. In endangered districts you don't want to cut anything your constituents say is vital to their lives," said Barbara O'Connor, political communications professor at California State University at Sacramento. "If you can take a powder, you should."
Most of the Republicans who have voted "no" on the budget cuts face re- election worries or nurse aspirations for higher office.
Newly elected Assemblywomen Shirley Horton of Chula Vista (San Diego County) and Bonnie Garcia of Cathedral City (Riverside County) are Republican lawmakers in Democrat-leaning districts.
Garcia's 80th district is 47 percent Democrat, 35 percent Republican. Horton's seat is 43 percent Democrat, 35 percent Republican, according to the 2001 reapportionment plan. Both will face well-financed Democratic challengers next year.
Garcia has voted against or not voted on all the mid-year budget cutting bills. Horton voted "yes" on only one.
"How are you going to hit the neediest of the needy when you are still spending money recklessly?" Garcia said.
She cited the fact that Assembly Speaker Wesson set up a satellite $250,000 office in her district that is run by Garcia's 2002 Democratic opponent.
Garcia said she opposes cutting education and also opposes parts of her own party's budget proposal.
She said she favors making recipients of Medi-Cal, California's health care program for the poor, prove their eligibility more than once a year, which could save the state more than $100 million.
One of the bills Garcia voted against last month would have forced Medi-Cal recipients to register twice a year. "Half a loaf," Garcia said.
In the less fractious Senate, once a budget deal is struck, Republicans link arms with Democrats. Most spending measures have been passed on unanimous or near unanimous votes.
The exception is Sen. Jeff Denham, R-Salinas, who represents a Democrat- leaning district.
Denham said he pledged during his campaign to vote against all cuts in education spending. He's been true to his word.
"I've got to vote my conscience and vote my district," Denham said. He also opposes reducing health care spending but favors cutting the state's boards and commissions.
Public school and health care funding represent more than two-thirds of state spending, while boards and commissions are well under 5 percent.
Polls show that Californians place education at the top of their worry list.
Fourteen Assembly Republicans -- nearly half the Republicans in the lower house -- voted against a bill whacking state support of public schools by $5 billion.
So did two Democrats -- Assemblyman Lou Correa, D-Santa Ana, and Assemblywoman Nicole Parra, D-Fresno. Parra narrowly won election in November.
Parra's seat is less than 50 percent Democrat. Correa's seat is 52 percent Democrat, but he has been routinely offered a lifeboat by his caucus since his 1998 election.
Assemblyman Abel Maldonado, a Santa Maria Republican in a safe GOP district in Santa Barbara County, is running for the Senate in 2004 and is expected to face Assemblywoman Rebecca Cohn, D-Saratoga.
Cohn has voted for the budget cuts; Maldonado hasn't.
Cohn's campaign consultant, Gale Kaufman, says that demonstrates Maldonado isn't ready to move up in the Legislature.
"It shows a lack of leadership to refuse to vote on the budget at all, to not be part of the solution," Kaufman said.
"That's the cleaner and easier campaign hit."