In a budget deal as painful and complicated as the one passed Friday by the Legislature, each lawmaker gets multiple opportunities to cast votes that could later be used against him or her in a campaign.

There was evidence everywhere last week of how important it is to each of them to pick their spots. Democratic Sen. Mark DeSaulnier from the East Bay, for instance, voted no or not at all on as many budget-cutting items as possible, because he is engaged in a special-election campaign this fall for an open seat in Congress. Republican Sens. Jeff Denham of the Central Valley, who is running for lieutenant governor in 2010, and Tom Harman of Orange County, who is running for attorney general, took care not to vote for cuts to schools or law enforcement. Over in the Assembly, Republican Anthony Adams of the Inland Empire, the target of a recall effort, abstained on vote after vote.

Sometimes, the situation becomes more than ordinary lawmakers can take. One example was Ventura County Sen. Fran Pavley, D-Agoura Hills, who is not running for anything. Through tough budget vote after tough budget vote in February, June and July, she had shouldered the burden of voting yes on every hard cut that the leadership had negotiated with the governor. About 2 a.m. Friday, Pavley, a former mayor and founding member of the Agoura Hills City Council, decided she had to take a stand. She refused to vote for a plan to raid transportation funding from local governments.

Without Pavley's vote, the plan stalled with a 20-20 tally. Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg pleaded with her to change her vote, but she didn't budge. After about half an hour, a San Francisco Bay Area Democrat switched, allowing the measure to pass 21-19.

Pavley and other Democrats were clearly piqued that more Republicans didn't vote for some of the tougher elements of the plan, since many of the particulars were the result of GOP victories in negotiations. GOP leaders openly praised and supported the overall plan, but rank-and-file Republican votes for many of its elements were few and far between.

Pavley noted that Republicans had insisted that there could be no new taxes in the plan, and rejected even a modest fire-protection surcharge on property insurance premiums proposed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. "They're against taxes and they're against cuts," she complained. "That's a prescription for IOUs."

In the end, all the angst in the Senate vote over the raid of local transportation funding was unnecessary. The Assembly scuttled the idea without a vote -- leaving the 21 senators who voted for the idea with a bad mark on their voting records (at least in the eyes of local government officials in their districts) for having cast a vote that turned out to be meaningless.

For years, some in California have held up Nevada as an example of a state that knows how to attract businesses and grow the economy. The sentiment is so strong, in fact, that a handful of Republican members of the California Legislature staged an event in Reno this spring designed to show how Nevada's low taxes and laissez-faire approach to regulation was an example that Sacramento ought to follow.

After Friday's unemployment report, perhaps a new example will have to be found to make those arguments.

Nevada's unemployment rate registered at 12 percent, slightly higher than California's depressing 11.6 percent rate.

Fact is, there's only so much government can do -- good or bad -- to affect the powerful forces of a free market. The popping of the real estate bubble and the ensuing wave of foreclosures has hit both states with a sledge hammer.

Having covered state news from Sacramento for a dozen years now, I continue to be amazed at the number of Ventura County connections that pop up. I am constantly running into political staffers, state administrators, lobbyists and others in Sacramento who grew up in the county, own property in the county, have parents who live in the county or who are otherwise personally linked to the county.

Others in the diminishing Sacramento press corps typically roll their eyes when they witness this Ventura County karma.

It happened again yesterday. I was in San Francisco covering a meeting of the commission tasked with recommending major revisions in California's tax system. As I sat at the press table after the meeting writing my story, Commissioner Edward De La Rosa, a Los Angeles investment banker appointed to the panel by legislative leaders, walked over to introduce himself.

"Ed De La Rosa," he said, extending his hand. "Buena High School, Class of 1974."

Here's an interesting development in what is already emerging as an intriguing Democratic primary on the Central Coast next year: Just days after former Assemblywoman Hannah-Beth Jackson stood alongside Santa Barbara City Councilman Das Williams as he officially announced his candidacy for Assembly, a prominent friend and mentor of Jackson endorsed Williams' opponent, Susan Jordan.

The Jordan campaign today announced the support of former state Sen. Sheila Kuehl, the former law professor and child actress from Santa Monica who helped Jackson get her start in politics and has long been one of her closest allies.

For Jordan, whose activies on behalf of the Coastal Protection Network and Vote the Coast have well established her credentials as an advocate for the environment, the Kuehl endorsement could help with two other significant constituencies in the Democratic primary in the 35th Assembly District. Kuehl was the state's first openly gay legislator and is a star in the gay community. In addition, she has been the chief proponent of single-payer healthcare, a movement that has both grassroots support and the strong support of the California Nurses Association.

The campaign's statement on the endorsement quotes Kuehl praising Jordan: "Her passionate support for equality for all Californians makes her the absolute right candidate for me and for the 35th."

Jordan is the wife of incumbent Assemblyman Pedro Nava, D-Santa Barbara, who will be termed out next year. The 35th District includes Santa Barbara, Ventura and much of Oxnard.

The political finger-pointing over the state budget mess has manifested itself in Simi Valley, where a political advocacy group funded by three large public employee unions has sent about 100,000 mailers in recent weeks to voters in the 38th Assembly District criticizing incumbent Republican Cameron Smyth of Santa Clarita.

Since Smyth will not be up for election for more than a year, these political mailers are intended to be on the order of a warning shot to the bow -- putting Smyth on notice that he could be targeted in 2010 as interest groups attempt to hold Republican lawmakers accountable for their insistence that the budget be balanced only through deep cuts in state services.

Smyth told me today that so far the mailers have generated about 400 phone calls and e-mails to his office -- about 70 percent of them supportive. He said the mailers won't "make any difference in the way I'm going to vote" and in an essay published today on a statewide Republican blog he restated his pledge to not vote for tax increases.

He is one of four GOP Assembly members who have been the subject of mailers. One of the pieces highlights his vote in support of a proposal offered by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to eliminate funding for home-to-school transportation.

Smyth joked that he is flattered that the group gives the impression that he has so much responsibility for the budget-cutting decisions -- "They're giving me a lot of credit" -- but complained that it's "hypocritical" to criticize only Republicans to vote for cuts that have also been agreed to by Democrats in the Legislature.

The attention comes at a time when most legislators would probably prefer a period of anonymity. The most recent polls show the approval rating for legislators at an all-time low, about 17 percent. From a lawmaker's perspective, it's not a good time for anyone to be spending money to remind voters of the name of their legislator. And after the inevitable new budget cuts are approved and the effects felt by Californians (such as the proposed 30 percent increase in Cal State fees next fall), voters will likely react with heightened anger. With these mailers, the seed is being planted that "Smyth" is the name of someone they can blame.

A typical state Assembly district includes about 400,000 people. So what are the odds that two major-party candidates would live three doors apart?

With this week's announcement by Camarillo Democrat Warren Harwood, a Pleasant Valley School District trustee, that he intends to run for the 37th Assembly District, it appears that could be the case in Ventura County next year.

Harwood lives three doors down from Republican Jeff Gorell, the only announced GOP candidate in the race.

Oddly, they do not know each other.

When I interviewed Harwood on Monday, I asked if he knew anything about Gorell. He replied that he knew him only by name.

Gorell said when he heard the news of Harwood's announcement today he suspected it could be his neighbor because he was that a neighbor, whose name he did not know, had run for school board last year. After some investigation, possibly over the back fence, his wife confirmed the suspicion.

Sensing an opportunity to both bring some Los Angeles County retail shoppers across the county line into Simi Valley and also to make a political point about taxes, Simi City Councilman Glen Becerra today purchased a full-page ad in the Los Angeles Daily News to point out that purchases now cost a penny and a half less on the dollar in Simi than they do in L.A. County.

The reason? The latest L.A. County sales tax increase took effect today, lifting the rate to 9.75 percent. The rate in Simi Valley is the basic statewide minimum, 8.25 percent.

"It's about giving people an opportunity to spend their money where it will go the farthest," Becerra told me today. He said he paid $2,300 from his city council campaign account to pay for the ad.