EDITORIAL CONTEMPT OF THE PUBLIC STATE LEGISLATORS PROFIT FROM OVERDUE SPENDING PLAN.

THEY did it, finally.

More than seven weeks after their constitutional deadline, members of the state Legislature were able to broker the right deals to secure the necessary two-thirds majority needed to approve a budget.

No need to crack open the champagne.

This is a budget that could, and should, have been passed weeks ago. But it wasn't, due to a wholly bipartisan brand of pettiness and political posturing up in Sacramento. And because politicians dragged their feet, real people suffered as important services went unfunded.

But the politicians didn't mind. They weren't the ones suffering from their negligence. In fact, they seem to have benefited from it.

That's because during this budget ordeal, California voters have grown increasingly disgusted with their elected leaders -- so disgusted that public support has grown for a ballot measure that would impose stricter term limits on our politicians.

The only problem is, no such ballot measure exists.

Borrowing a page from the Los Angeles City Council's deceitful passage of Measure R -- an assault on term limits dolled up to look like just the opposite -- the state's political leaders are putting a measure on the February ballot that would let them stay in their offices longer.

Only they have made the title and language so confusing that voters mistakenly think the measure would actually get them out of office more quickly.

And nothing gets the public more supportive of term limits than contempt and inaction from their leaders.

So the budget impasse has served the politicos well. They've managed to annoy, offend and outrage us all -- maybe even so much that we'll inadvertently allow them to annoy, offend and outrage us for even longer.

But not if we see through their trickery. We cannot afford to reward the legislators' lazy and self-indulgent lazy behavior, let alone their deceitful ways.