SACRAMENTO — The Legislature moved closer to an $8 billion showdown with a federal judge Tuesday when partisan differences in the Senate prevented a long-term financing deal to fund prison healthcare facilities from coming to a vote.

The inaction increases the likelihood that prison healthcare Receiver Clark Kelso will seek a contempt order against Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Controller John Chiang. At a hearing now scheduled Oct. 6 in San Francisco, Kelso will ask District Court Judge Thelton Henderson to force the state to release the money needed to carry out Kelso's construction plans.

Two prison-related bills were among the two dozen budget-related measures scheduled to be voted on by lawmakers late Monday and early Tuesday, but they were shelved after Democrats would not agree to changes to a previously approved prison bond measure sought by Republicans.

Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata, D-Oakland, said Democrats "didn't feel it was the right thing to do, to use the budget to repeal laws that had already been passed."

Lacking bipartisan support, the new bond bill dealing with the healthcare facilities was doomed.

Assemblywoman Audra Strickland, R-Moorpark, had been hopeful that as part of an umbrella agreement that included the state budget, a deal could be struck allowing passage of a modified prison healthcare bond bill that would have included a restriction preventing any of the money from being spent in Ventura County.

Such a maneuver might have blocked Kelso from following through on his tentative plan to build one of the new 1,500-bed prison hospitals on the grounds of the Ventura Youth Correctional Facility near Camarillo.

Sen. Mike Machado, D-Linden, said he never seriously considered Strickland's request, saying it was "not appropriate."

"If we put it in for Ventura, we'd have to put it in for Stockton, Donovan (a facility in San Diego) and for all the rest," he said.

"What Ms. Strickland fails to understand is that this is a federal court and that federal courts aren't constrained by state statutes," he said.

Lawmakers might have additional opportunities to try to avert a courtroom showdown.

Schwarzenegger's announcement Tuesday that he will veto the budget approved by lawmakers means that the Legislature will have to return to Sacramento to vote on whether to override the veto — and, if that fails, to begin anew on budget negotiations.

Additionally, some observers believe that there is a possibility that Schwarzenegger could call a special session on prisons before a three-judge panel opens proceedings in November to consider whether to order the release of some inmates to reduce overcrowding.

Lawmakers did not deal with that issue this year, rejecting proposals to implement early-release programs and other reforms.

"I think we've been pretty cavalier all year long in the way some of my colleagues have treated the federal courts involved with the prisons," Perata said.

Kelso has begun the environmental review process for the first two of the seven planned healthcare facilities, in Stockton and San Diego. He has not yet decided whether to initiate a formal review of the Ventura County site.