As the Capitol guessing game goes from the budget to the special election, Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez says Democrats may be willing to give the governor some power to make mid-year budget adjustments on his own.

In a brief news conference after the passage of the budget (34-14 in the Senate, 64-13 in the Assembly), Nunez laid the idea of mid-year cuts on the table, even before substantive negotiations begin with Governor Schwarzenegger.

You'll remember that California governors had power to make course corrections in state spending during any budget year until 1983, when then Governor George Deukmejian agreed to a proposal that scrapped that power. Governors still have the power of a line-item veto when signing a budget, the "blue pencil" authority that is rarely used these days.

Mid-year spending cuts, however, are only part of what the Schwarzenegger ballot initiative known as "Live Within Our Means" would do. That initiative (which is actually now Proposition 76) also would impose spending limits calculated by an average of spending from the previous 3 years.

It also would give the governor the power to cut across the board... including cuts in school funding now protected by Proposition 98. Interestingly enough, that protection only dates back to 1988... five years after governors lost the power to make mid-year budget cuts on their own.

So, what's the timeline for actually trying to seek a compromise on budget reforms (or redistricting, for that matter)? Nunez says he still intends to adjourn for a monthlong summer recess next Friday... arguing that the Legislature has until mid-August to place something on the November ballot.

Of course, Schwarzenegger has said he thinks the deadline is around the beginning of August. And neither of those dates would actually make the deadline for the main ballot pamphlet to be published... but as mentioned in this space yesterday, that's been little cause for concern in the past.