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The deal is done.The California Legislature voted early today to approve a massive budget package of tax increases, spending cuts and borrowing to close a $40 billion deficit after granting major concessions to one holdout Republican senator.Lawmakers had been at a five-day impasse until Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and legislative leaders today agreed to give Sen. Abel Maldonado, R-Santa Maria, major changes he demanded in exchange for providing a crucial 27th vote for the state budget.The votes came after what Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg said was, at 45 1/2 hours, the single longest Senate floor session in California history.Schwarzenegger applauded legislators as having the "courage to stand up and put the needs of Californians first.""This is a very difficult budget, but we have turned this crisis into an opportunity to make real, lasting reforms for Californians,"he said in a written statement."Some special interests may not like this budget-but like I always say, what's good for the people is not always good for special interests."Sen. Dennis Hollingsworth, who ascended to the role of Senate Republican leader after Dave Cogdill was ousted early Wednesday, continued to warn Democrats this morning that the budget deal was bad for the state."I'm sure that after this is over, there will be lots of hugging, backslapping and congratulatory wishes that this budget is finally done," he said. "You may count this as a win because you got a few Republicans to vote for it. The vast majority of Republicans are standing here saying raising taxes is the wrong thing to do. The taxpayers of California are going to view this as a loss."The deal comes at a time when California was headed for fiscal calamity, already unable to pay all its bills and on the precipice today of suspending 374 construction projects that were valued at $5.58 billion and could have affected more than 90,000 jobs statewide.As part of Maldonado's agreement, lawmakers approved measures asking voters to approve constitutional amendments to establish an open primary system and ban legislative pay increases during deficit years. But legislative leaders refused to grant him his proposal to eliminate legislative pay altogether when the budget is late.Leaders also agreed to Maldonado's demand to eliminate the 12-cent additional gas tax, which was estimated to bring in $2.1 billion through June 2010, and up to a 5 percent surcharge on income tax liability. The money will be replaced with a 0.25 percent increase in the state income tax rate, federal stimulus dollars and more than $600 million in line-item vetoes.With the changes made Thursday, the deal totals $15 billion in state spending reductions, $12.8 billion in temporary tax increases, $11.4 billion in borrowing and a $1 billion reserve.Steinberg said he felt a "great sense of relief" from Thursday's final vote, which ended a two-night Senate lockdown that he had warned would continue until agreement were reached."It's not a celebration," Steinberg said afterward. "The decisions we were called upon to make over these past couple of months were very difficult and very painful. But we stepped up, and we did it."Schwarzenegger and legislative leaders spent most of the night trying to corral enough votes for the Maldonado plan, pushing back floor session multiple times until they believed they had sufficient support.The Senate resumed session around 3:40 a.m. and initially hit a snag as four Democrats refused to vote for Maldonado's proposal to have an open primary system in California elections. Intended to reduce party influence in elections, the open primary system would have the top two candidates in a primary face off in the subsequent general election.But the Senate ultimately passed that plan. Several members strongly objected to the open primary bill but voted for it anyway because they said it was even more important to avoid a cash crisis and avert the construction shutdown.By Kevin Yamamura, Aurelio Rojas and Jim Sanders
As in the days of Noah...
