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Davis Tries to Rally Support for Budget "Davis has been running around the state asking where the Republican budget proposals are," said Peter DeMarco, spokesman for Assembly Republican Leader Dave Cox of Fair Oaks. "His memory must have slipped away from him, since there are two viable budget proposals out there from Senate and Assembly Republicans. It's political grandstanding." Davis has also angered some Republicans by singling out Cox and Senate Republican Leader Jim Brulte (Rancho Cucamonga) and urging editorial writers and opinion makers to pressure them to support tax increases. "It's one thing to strong-arm a legislator behind closed doors, but it's never productive to embarrass them in public," said Dan Schnur, a Republican political consultant who served as a communications strategist to Republican Gov. Pete Wilson. "He needs to find a way to build support for his proposal without publicly embarrassing the people he needs to help pass a budget." Davis is facing opposition from Democrats and Republicans over his budget, which would address the state's shortfall by raising taxes by more than $8 billion, borrowing $10.7 billion and cutting state spending by about $18 billion. Democratic lawmakers do not support many of the spending cuts Davis is advocating and Republicans are opposed to raising taxes. Time is of the essence, as Wall Street bankers warn that California faces serious financial consequences if a budget isn't approved by July 1, the beginning of the new fiscal year. Wilson struggled to sell his 1991 budget plan, which had as its centerpiece $7 billion in tax increases and $7 billion in spending cuts, fund shifts and loans, aides said. The following year he promoted further budget cuts by traveling the state to meet with editorial boards, hold town hall meetings, appear on radio talk shows and conduct news conferences. "The short-term effect was to link him to the deficit and it drove down his approval ratings," said Schnur. "But in the long term it did build public support for his budget solution." Davis contends that his revised budget was shaped to promote a compromise between the sharply divergent views of Democratic and Republican lawmakers. He restored some cuts in education and social services that Democrats opposed and he adopted a Republican proposal to borrow money to pay off the state's current-year deficit.
"I've tried to accommodate concerns from Democrats and Republicans, recognizing that I need a two-thirds vote to pass this budget and I've got to be sensitive to things that are important to them," Davis said this week. "The ball is really in the legislators' court if they want any adjustments to my May revise."
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