With the constitutional deadline for passage of a state budget less than a week away, the governor and legislative leaders are nowhere near agreement on how to address California's $38 billion two-year deficit. And the drive to recall Gov. Gray Davis is gathering steam, adding to the sense of crisis here.

California elections officials announced today that supporters of a recall had submitted 376,008 petition signatures, more than a third of the 897,158 needed to put the measure to voters. Sponsors of the measure, who say they have several hundred thousand more signatures waiting to be submitted, have until Sept. 2 to produce the petitions needed to qualify for a fall special election.

The Democratic governor is trying to deal simultaneously with the budget crisis with almost no help from Republicans and the recall threat. The result is the proverbial governmental train wreck, squared.

"I've never seen anything like this at any level of government," said Assemblyman Joseph Canciamilla, a moderate Democrat who is trying, most likely in vain, to broker a budget compromise. "The mood here is a blend of frustration, desperation and utter amazement."

The surly sentiment in Sacramento is mirrored across the state. More than two-thirds of Californians disapprove of the way the Legislature is handling the budget, according to a survey of 2,003 Californians this month by the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California. Governor Davis's approval rating among likely voters is a dismal 21 percent, the lowest on record for any California governor, the survey found. About half of those surveyed said they would vote to remove him from office if the recall election were held today.

Governor Davis says that Republicans are to blame for the crisis by refusing to consider tax increases to pull the state out of its fiscal problems and by pushing an ill-considered recall effort. He warns that his Republican antagonists are on the verge of driving the state into insolvency and political chaos by their actions.