State budget battle draws on

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (KGO) -- The newly-created commission to redraw legislative and congresional districts gave voters their first look at where the lines will be drawn today. The new maps are being released while lawmakers have drawn party lines on taxes and spending.

The new maps show Republican districts of California state senators Sam Blakeslee and Anthony Cannella as becoming more Democratic leaning.

"Adopt the Governor's proposal to extend the 2010 tax rates, or make billions of dollars in additional cuts," Senator Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento) said.

That is just what California Democrats were hoping for as the state senate began debating whether to extend the higher sales tax and vehicle license fees until a special election can be held.

Two Republican votes are needed to approve the tax extensions and the new maps could change some minds.

"It's a time when people least can afford yoru tax increase," Senator Tony Strickland (R-Thousand Oaks) said. "It's an extra $1,000 for families."

In the end, extending the tax rates failed. The draft maps made no difference.

"Why should they?" asked political analyst Tony Quinn. "The voting-for-this-tax thing might not be popular.in anybody's district."

Sacramento's continued budget stalemates year after year ar finally taking a toll.

Recently, an adult daycare center was forced to shut down due to a lack of funding. The daycare center was the seventh to close in California in recent months, bringing tears to two dozen workers who lost their jobs and nearly 100 patients who now have nowhere to go.

"They need to take care of their people," Helen Champan, the mother of one patient, said.

The owner of the Adult Health Day Care Center said the lack of fudning was frustrating.

"It's been frustrating for me, in the past, to run into budget impasses, not knowing if we're going to get paid, borrowing money from the bank and playing the game back and forth," owner Jim MacDonald said.

After June 15, lawmaker's pay will be docked for every day the state budget is late. If that happens, they will not receive back pay.

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sacramento, budget cuts, politics, nannette miranda

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