The Republicans in the California State Senate appear to have found their huevos as one of them, Dave Cox of Fair Oaks, changed his mind and refused to vote for the proposed state budget and its huge tax increase. And State Senator Roy Ashburn, of Bakersfield, abstained when Cox would not vote for the budget.
“The support of Sen. Lou Correa, Democrat from Santa Ana, was thought to be secured after top lawmakers brokered a deal to bring more money to Orange County,” according to the Orange County Register.
Sabrina Lockhart, a spokeswoman for GOP State Senate Leader Dave Cogdill of Modesto, said her boss believed he “has negotiated … the best possible package to keep the state from plummeting off the financial cliff,” according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
In related news, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger cut a deal with “the union representing nearly 95,000 state workers,” according to the Sacramento Bee. The deal “includes one unpaid furlough day off per month instead of the two the governor had ordered. The deal also includes fewer paid holidays, changes to how overtime is calculated, kicks in more for employees’ health insurance premiums and limits layoffs.”
Each day passing without a budget puts the obstructionists, the Republicans, more in a hole they are not going to get out of. They can kiss their chances to win a gubernatorial election goodbye.