SACRAMENTO -- Gov. Jerry Brown will likely ramp up his talks with Republicans next week to see if they can work out a budget deal on taxes, pension rollbacks and a spending cap.

But, he also has to repair some fractured souls among his own Democratic allies as the fallout of his historic budget veto Thursday continues to descend from the left.

A day after Brown vetoed a budget he suggested was too gimmicky, Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, halted all confirmation hearings on the governor's appointments. One lawmaker announced she is unlikely to consider concessions on reforms that Republicans demanded. And another said Brown had "blindsided" Democrats by failing to warn them of his veto, and criticized him for frittering away his bargaining power.

The veto was a body blow to the Democrats, who used their majority power on a budget for the first time since Proposition 25 last fall lowered the threshold for approving a budget from two-thirds to a simple majority.

They approved a budget that added $600 million in cuts on top of $12 billion made earlier this year, but closed the remaining $9.6 billion gap with mostly accounting maneuvers, questionable tax and fee hikes, and an unpopular sale of state-owned buildings.

Democrats may have gone into their budget vote under the impression that Brown was willing to accept it after he said earlier in the week that he would take a "very hard look" at a budget with no more significant cuts.


"Yes, I and others feel misled," said Sen. Ted Lieu, D-Torrance, in a Twitter exchange with the Bay Area News Group. "Administration was briefed in advance of the bill package. They could have said don't do it. We did not have to waste our time."

He continued: "No excuse for a Democratic governor to blindside a Democratic legislature that was working with him and his staff."

In a phone interview later, Lieu said, "when you're negotiating with opponents, you don't give them more leverage to try to close the deal. That's what happened in my view.

"It would have been easier to get a deal with Republicans if they knew we could walk away from it," Lieu said. "Now, Republicans know they're in a situation where they'll be extracting more demands."
Sen. Noreen Evans, D-Santa Rosa, criticized Brown for engaging in the kind of brinkmanship that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger used in 2009, resulting in a cash crisis, IOUs to vendors, halted construction projects and thousands of layoffs.

She said the Republicans' most recent reform demands contain "gratuitous" rollbacks of environmental protections and an "unworkable" permanent hard spending cap that would cripple the state for years.

"Because of these detrimental consequences, I more than likely could not support a budget deal that included these outrageous Republican demands," she said.

Steinberg derided Brown for six months of failed negotiations with Republicans, saying the governor's constant reference to his initial budget proposal to eliminate the state's $26.5 billion deficit with half cuts and half taxes "rings hollow if he is unable to deliver Republican votes.

"The governor is really getting caught up and frankly confused between total victory, which cannot be achieved in one year, and progress," Steinberg added.

Democrats shouldn't have been caught off guard, said Brown's spokesman Gil Duran.

"The governor has been exceedingly clear about the fact that California needs a budget that will put the state on firm fiscal footing, and he will continue working with legislators on both sides of the aisle to get a better budget," Duran said. "Anyone who is surprised hasn't been paying attention."

At the heart of Brown's veto message was "protecting his brand" as an elder statesman who wanted to craft an honest budget, said Bill Whalen, a fellow at the Hoover Institution and former speech writer for ex-Gov. Pete Wilson.

"To turn around and sign a gimmicky budget would have eviscerated that image with one fell swoop of the pen," Whalen said.

As it was approved by Democrats, the budget may also have undercut the governor's negotiating position with Republicans. Brown has been trying to persuade Republicans to go along with a so-called bridge tax -- about $2 billion in temporary taxes to stabilize school and public safety spending until a September election on tax extensions.

Republicans, however, said that the budget proved their point that a bridge tax was not needed. All Democrats need, Republicans said, was to paper over the next two months with the same accounting maneuvers Democrats used in the budget.

Now, with Brown taking a stand against his own party, he might have improved his relations with Republicans, and, hence, prospects for a deal, Whalen said.

"My sense is that Democrats will get over it once he has a deal in place with Republicans."

Brown, meanwhile, avoided the Sacramento heat literally and figuratively, issuing his veto message Thursday from Southern California and remaining there through Friday.

"Sacramento is hot in more than climatological ways," Brown told reporters after attending a solar project groundbreaking ceremony in Riverside County.