SPRINGFIELD, Ill. – Republicans in the Illinois House are watching the clock, waiting for the moment when they gain new power over the state budget.

If Democrats haven’t passed a budget by midnight Thursday, then legislative rules suddenly require a super-majority to pass anything. That means House Minority Leader Tom Cross and his fellow Republicans could veto any state budget plan they don’t like – a prospect that worries many Democrats.

“We don’t want to make Tom Cross the king of Illinois,” said Rep. Bob Molaro, D-Chicago. “We know that if we go past May 31, anybody who wants money from Illinois and anybody who wants spending or anything else has to go to Tom Cross.”

Democratic Gov. Rod Blagojevich has begun using the prospect of greater Republican influence as a scare tactic. He says Democrats must unify behind one spending plan before GOP lawmakers gain the power to chop preschool, health care and other services.

“We should do everything we can to get the business of the people done on time so that we don’t empower the House Republicans. We know what their proposals are and what that means to the things Democrats care about,” Blagojevich said.

Cross denies Republicans want to cut services, saying they simply want to avoid a big tax increase at a time when consumers already are struggling.

“We feel now more than ever, given high gas prices and high electric rates, that a tax increase is not the appropriate thing to be doing,” Cross said Tuesday.

The reason for the Democratic anxiety is a legislative rule on how many votes it takes to pass a state budget.

Before the Legislature’s scheduled adjournment date of May 31, it requires a simple majority, so Democrats have enough votes to pass the budget on their own.

But after May 31, it requires a three-fifths majority. Democrats have that many votes in the Senate but not in the House. That means some Republican votes would be required for the House to pass a new state budget.

The chances of Democrats beating the deadline appeared to shrink Tuesday.

The governor met with Senate President Emil Jones and House Speaker Michael Madigan for more than an hour, but they reported no progress afterward. “We don’t have anything,” Jones said on the key issue of gambling.

Blagojevich and Jones want a budget that increases spending by billions of dollars for education, health care and other services. They would pay for it by creating several new riverboat casinos and raising a variety of business taxes.

Madigan says his members won’t support that plan, but he won’t outline what they could support, which frustrates the governor and Senate president. They say if Madigan doesn’t like their plan, he should offer one of his own.

Meanwhile, Cross prefers a much more austere spending plan for the budget year that begins July 1.

He says state revenues will grow by about $720 million. He would use that money to make the state’s annual contribution to government pension programs and give schools a $200 million increase, or about 3 percent. Blagojevich’s original plan promised a 23 percent increase of $1.5 billion.

Cross, R-Oswego, also proposes letting existing riverboat casinos expand, which he says would produce enough money to support $5 billion in construction bonds to pay for new roads and schools.

Blagojevich insists that budget would require deep cuts to preschool and to health programs for children and women, but Cross denied that. “We don’t see any cuts,” he said.

Democrats aren’t making even a pretense of working with Republicans. GOP leaders are excluded from budget negotiations, and Blagojevich openly discusses the need to keep them from “getting into the game.”

Cross called that attitude “sad and a mistake.”

“The governor represents Republicans as well as Democrats, and I represent Democrats as well as Republicans,” he said. “Am I personally offended? No, but I don’t think it’s the right way to govern.”

As the leaders’ stalemate continued, frustration among rank-and-file lawmakers intensified.

Sen. James Meeks, D-Chicago, a leader in the effort to overhaul education funding, said race plays a role in the lack of action on school aid.

“If there were white students populating the Chicago Public Schools, the speaker of the House, the governor and Senate president would have figured this out by now,” Meeks said. “I think it’s racial.”