SACRAMENTO — He started out as a champion of their ideals, the leader of a group of conservative Republican state senators devoted to cutting the size of government and blocking tax increases for their rural and suburban constituents.
But over time, state Sen. Dave Cogdill came to see the crisis facing California as bigger than his own closely held views. Then late Tuesday, two former allies walked into his office to deliver the news that his reign was over.
"I don't want to raise taxes, either," Cogdill, a Modesto businessman turned lawmaker, said Wednesday. "It was the hardest decision of my political career, and probably the one that ended it.
"But nonetheless, you know, we're sent here to do a job," he said, "and you don't control the situation. You just have to react to it, stand up for what you believe and make the right decisions."
With the state government and its elected leadership near paralysis, a small group of Republican senators has successfully stymied efforts by Democrats, fellow Republicans in the Assembly and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to plug the state's giant deficit with a plan that includes $14.4 billion in taxes, along with deep program cuts and limits on future spending.
Their near-sacred opposition to taxes ran headlong into a deficit so large that even some within their ranks say it cannot be dealt with by trimming fat from government alone. Still, these true believers have refused to submit, energized -- and intimidated, some say -- by national conservative figures, local talk radio hosts and bloggers.
In this crisis, some senators and their supporters see an opportunity to spotlight a bloated bureaucracy, to change contracting and employment laws that benefit unions and to address other pet peeves that cost the public money.
"That 'chicken in every pot' philosophy is a load of crap," a reader, Gregg Palmer, wrote on a conservative blog in response to a note from Cogdill shortly after his late-night ouster. "If the state need(s) to close its doors for a few weeks, so be it. We'll be better off.
"Stand firm," he urged those lawmakers holding out against tax hikes.
Schwarzenegger praised Cogdill on Wednesday for his stand, calling him a man "of great character and a man that you can really trust 100%."
"He did what was right for the people," the governor said. "Maybe not what was right for politics."
