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It appears efforts to convince Gov. Gray Davis to approve emergency spending packages – parts of which would fast-track hundreds of millions of dollars in need-based financial aid to California college students – will fall short.

As the state enters the ninth week of the fiscal year without a budget, nearly 200,000 students are without their Cal Grants – aid packages that help students pay for university fees, rent, parking and books.

Assembly Democrats and Republicans have both introduced plans that would allow the governor to declare an emergency and spend money for Cal Grants and other state-provided services almost immediately under the California constitution. But Davis’ hesitancy – combined with questions about whether a partisan budget gridlock constitutes an emergency – suggest such efforts will be fruitless.

To financially protect students, meanwhile, the chancellor of the California State University system asked each of system’s campuses to front the money for the Cal Grant awards. The UC has promised to do the same for UC Berkeley students, and will not have to worry about its other campuses if a budget is passed by mid-September.

State politicians, though, can’t find a way to come to a deal.

Assembly Republican leader Dave Cox, R–Sacramento, last week called on Gray Davis to invoke his emergency powers to approve a spending bill that would allow the state to pay educational grants and health care bills, before the budget is passed.

“By taking this critical step, we can ensure California’s neediest citizens will not have to suffer or be held hostage while a responsible budget is crafted,” Cox said at a press conference Aug. 22.

But Davis rejected the idea as a mere temporary solution, a press aide said the next day.

“There is no reason to take a piecemeal approach to the budget,” said press aide Anita Gore, responding to Cox’s plan.

Two days after Cox unveiled his plan, Assembly Democrats approved even broader amendments to a separate bill that would allow the state to spend emergency money on most state programs, including Cal Grants, but would not fund one-time expenditures or state legislators’ salary.

After the new amendments to the old bill were approved with bi-partisan support, the bill was sent back to the Assembly Budget Committee, where negotiations continue.

The governor’s office could not be reached for comment Aug. 25, a day after the Assembly approved the Democrats’ emergency spending amendments. Peter DeMarco, press aide for Cox, said the governor would not support the Democrats’ spending amendments either.

The only thing Sacramento politicians can agree upon is that the passage of a complete budget, rather than emergency packages, would be best. But how to do so, is another issue entirely.

Earlier in the week Assemblywoman Elaine Alquist,

D–San Jose, who is the chair of the Assembly Committee on Higher Education, sent a letter to Cox blaming the the Cal Grant situation on the “Assembly Republican Caucus’ unwillingness to vote for the state budget.”

“If the republicans would just get off their ... We could get these students their Cal Grants,” said Paul Mitchell, a consultant to the Assembly Higher Education Committee.

But DeMarco, Cox’s representative, called Davis’ budget “bad, wrong and out-of-balance.”

He cited a study by the Legislative Analysis Office which said Davis’ plan spends too much and would blow a multi-billion dollar hole in the budget.

“The governor’s plan is a sham,” he said.

With reports from the Associated Press and Andrew Edwards, Daily Bruin Contributor.