Threatening to scuttle California's budget deal, Assembly Republican leader Sam Blakeslee accused Democrats on Tuesday of double-crossing him with an emerging plan to reduce the state's prison population.

In an e-mail to colleagues titled "Budget Double Cross?" Blakeslee said the budget negotiated with Democrats clearly ruled out "early prisoner releases." Blakeslee also said that leaders had agreed to tackle the prison issue in August after the main budget bills had been approved by the Legislature, an action that tentatively is scheduled for Thursday.

"Just two hours ago I learned from staff that Senate Democrats are concocting a radioactive corrections bill that includes the worst of the worst - a sentencing commission and release of 27,000 prisoners, etc.," Blakeslee wrote. The Assembly Republican leader added that he had informed Assembly Speaker Karen Bass and Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg that "there will be no Republican votes for any portion of the budget if they allow such a bill to be part of the package."

The Schwarzenegger administration scrambled to explain that much of the plan relies on parole and sentencing changes that would keep offenders out of the prison system in the first place. Steinberg said there was no "double cross" and predicted the issue would be resolved amicably.

"I think it's nothing more than a simple misunderstanding," Steinberg said. "Emotions are high and this is an extraordinary (budget) situation. This will be worked out." Blakeslee's eruption was just one of several major attacks Tuesday on the state's freshly minted plan to close a $26.3 billion budget gap.

Earlier Tuesday, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors voted to authorize a lawsuit if the Legislature adopts portions of the deal that would bolster state coffers with local redevelopment and gas-tax funds.

Angry about three-day furloughs for state workers, Service Employees International Union Local 1000 also vowed to contest the budget-balancing plan as an unfair pay cut extending until next June. "Making state employees pay what amounts to a 15 percent furlough tax is just plain wrong," said Yvonne Walker, president of SEIU Local 1000. "We'll fight in the courts, the Legislature and in the workplace to have it cut back."

Bass predicted the wide-ranging budget proposal would pass despite its numerous critics, saying lawmakers had "no easy choices" in solving such a massive shortfall. "I know that a derailment would be major drama," Bass said. "I just don't think it's going to happen."

Democratic leaders lamented the need to cut $15.5 billion in state programs as part of the budget deal, but they claimed victory in preserving much of the state's safety net for vulnerable Californians. "Given the extraordinary economic circumstances that we've faced in California since the first of the year, I am proud of what we were able to save," Steinberg said.

Blakeslee's anger stemmed from an emerging plan that would cut the state prison budget by $1.2 billion, partly by reducing the prison population, a sensitive issue statewide and a politically explosive one for lawmakers. Blakeslee, in his memo to colleagues, said that throughout budget negotiations, "We insisted that Republican votes would never be provided for a budget deal that included early release of prisoners." In a public statement later, Blakeslee said that "budget negotiations depend on the good-faith actions of all parties" and that an inmate-reduction plan never was discussed or agreed upon.

"We made it abundantly clear during negotiations that such policies would endanger the public and were unacceptable," he said.

Proponents of the plan emerging Tuesday contend that it does not propose "early release" of dangerous criminals back onto the streets before they've served their sentences.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's goal is to reduce the prison population by as many as 27,000 inmates through six measures, none of which the governor considers "early release," according to Corrections Secretary Matthew Cate.