Next step in Sacramento?

Assuming Senate Democrats are unable to find a Republican to vote for the $42 billion deficit plan, they might just decide the pass the budget with a simple majority (a two-thirds "supermajority" is needed), send it off to the governor's office for his signature, and put the onus on the Republicans to go to court. This actually happened last month, but Schwarzenegger vetoed the plan and so the lawyers didn’t have to be brought in. Relying on a "So sue me" strategy seems pretty desperate, but these are obviously desperate times (and when you've been up most of the weekend lots of unusual options will come to mind). State politics guru Dan Walters says that "even jaded veterans of the Capitol's often bizarre internal politics had never seen anything quite like the weekend marathon..." The Senate will reconvene this morning at 11. More from Walters:

The outcome was never in doubt in the Assembly, whose GOP leader, Mike Villines, enjoys strong support among his colleagues. The issue has been the Senate's 15-member, notoriously fragmented Republican contingent whose leader, Dave Cogdill, is always about one vote away from being dumped – if anyone else would take the job. Cogdill would vote for the package along with Bakersfield Sen. Roy Ashburn, but the third GOP senator was elusive throughout the weekend as speculation – and outside pressure – shifted from one senator to another.

Here are the WSJ and LAT stories.