** FILE **Senate Minority Leader Dick Ackerman, right, is joined by other Republican lawmakers in this file photo at the Capitol in Sacramento, Calif., Monday, May 1, 2006. The struggle to pass California's overdue state budget centers on an outnumbered, little-known group of 15 _ the Republican minority in the state Senate that refuses to go along with the $145 billion spending plan. Senate Republicans, the lone group standing in the way of the overdue state budget, on Monday, July 23, 2007, said they would seek to cut programs that receive relatively small amounts of government funding. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli)