California legislators begin each year's session with a fairly comprehensive understanding of what they're supposed to accomplish, and they certainly don't lack the resources of time and staff assistance to do their jobs. Indeed, it's interesting to note that despite the state's huge budget deficits and the certainty of severe cutbacks in state and local services, the Legislature is planning about a $10 million boost in spending on itself.

Were the Legislature subjected to the operational scrutiny that it applies to other state agencies and programs, however, its efficiency would never pass muster. It tends to function at only two speeds -- lethargy and panic -- and neither is conducive to well-reasoned decision-making.

The Legislature virtually goes to sleep for weeks on end, conducting only minimal sessions to satisfy the legal requirements for members' tax-free expense payments -- over $800 a week -- to continue. And then, when deadlines for passing something -- the state budget, for instance -- approach, it shifts into manic mode. The latter is most evident in the final week of the annual session, when lawmakers will race through hundreds of bills without any real knowledge of their contents, often because the measures are being rewritten just minutes before votes.

Why this operational mode -- the institutional equivalent of bipolar disorder -- persists is one of the Capitol's minor mysteries. It has survived despite voters' decrees, rewrites of internal rules, evolutions of leadership and other systemic changes made in the name of efficiency. The human tendency toward procrastination is one factor, certainly, as is the endemic aversion among politicians to making decisions that might backfire on them. Some lobbyists prefer that mode because last-minute confusion helps them slip through otherwise questionable bills, a syndrome that insiders call "low-balling."

Arnold Schwarzenegger, who came to the governorship promising "action, action, action" on the budget and other issues, is rapidly learning about legislative lethargy. Although lawmakers gave him a couple of quick and easy wins, such as repealing a controversial extension of driver's licenses to illegal immigrants and a bond issue to refinance state debt, they've returned to their time-dishonored ways on other issues the governor is pushing.

The Democratic-controlled Legislature has scarcely acknowledged Schwarzenegger's demands for midyear budget cuts, much less acted on them. And his quest for rapid action on an overhaul of workers' compensation to forestall a ballot measure fight on the issue is getting equally short shrift.

The Legislature this week enters what Capitol veterans know as the midwinter doldrums. January's start-up flurry is over and by custom, lawmakers will not have serious committee hearings on the budget or newly introduced legislation until the trees in Capitol Park begin to bud out and its flowers begin to bloom again.

When Schwarzenegger first introduced his midyear budget package in December, the more or less official excuse among legislators was that they needed to see his entire budget proposal, due to be released on Jan. 10. But in the three weeks since, a new excuse has arisen: that nothing can be done until after the March 2 primary election, when the fate of the $15 billion debt refinancing bond is known. After that, one presumes, the rationale for procrastination will shift again -- that nothing can be done until the administration produces its "May revise" of the budget. But, of course, the fiscal year will end on June 30, so effectively, the midyear reductions may never happen.

What's emerging is what many thought would occur when the impatiently energetic Republican Schwarzenegger collided with a perpetually procrastinating Democratic Legislature -- the political equivalent of the unstoppable force colliding with the immovable object. Democrats, who want to raise taxes, and Schwarzenegger, who says he won't, will spar for weeks, even months. The Democrats hope that pressures from groups affected by the proposed budget cuts will change Schwarzenegger's mind, while the governor believes that he has popular support on his side.

In the meantime, however, watching the Legislature will be like watching grass grow in Capitol Park.