AUGUSTA — Maine’s budget crisis bogged down deeper in partisan mud Monday, as the Senate president accused the Republican minority of being misinformed and the ranking GOP leader ridiculed Democratic desires for an immediate special session as “bizarre.”

Senate President Charles P. Pray, releasing results from his weekend polling of rank-and-file legislators, said he reached 20 of the 22 Democrats and all but one endorsed the proposal for the Legislature to call itself into session beginning Wednesday. He said he was able to contact 12 of the 13 Republicans and none of them supported the idea.

A majority in each political party is required for the Legislature to take the unusual step of bypassing the governor and calling itself into session.

Although the 54 House Republicans potentially could overturn the Senate results and supply an overall majority, GOP leaders said they did not expect that to happen.

The outcome of the House polling was not expected to be completed before Tuesday. Speaker John L. Martin had yet to reach more than 30 of the 151 members as of Monday, and most were Republicans, Martin’s aides said.

“I’m amazed by the number of (telephone answering) machines legislators have,” Martin, D-Eagle Lake, said in mock exasperation Monday.

House Minority Leader Walter Whitcomb, echoing GOP Gov. John R. McKernan, said any special session would be fruitless unless there were a consensus in advance on spending cuts to offset a projected shortfall of more than $100 million through the end of the fiscal year in June.

Whitcomb, whose caucus planned to meet Tuesday afternoon, predicted the House GOP would block the session and urged Martin to call together the Appropriations Committee in a renewed attempt to reach an agreement.

“The only hope for budget success rests with members of the Appropriations Committee and leadership, who must make a commitment not to unravel the package with amendments,” the Waldo Republican said in a letter to the speaker.

Opposition to an immediate special session stemmed from a desire to avoid “another legislative debacle” like those that marked budget deliberations earlier this year, “the like of which are only too fresh in all our minds,” Whitcomb said.

McKernan was away from the State House on Monday, presiding over Capital for a Day activities in Bridgton.

The Appropriations Committee already rejected McKernan’s original deficit-prevention package because of its cuts to municipalities and schools. But lawmakers have been unable to come up with an alternate proposal.

Pray scolded the Senate Republicans while challenging their House counterparts to support a pre-holiday special session.

“Some senators apparently believe they can shirk their elective duty by closing party ranks and hiding in the crowd. I hope the House Republicans will take a more responsible attitude,” Pray said.

Pray said some GOP senators “were not fully informed” about a package of cuts, supported by a narrow and all-Democratic majority on the Appropriations Committee, that could forestall any deficit. Further, he noted there was bipartisan support on the committee for about $50 million in reductions.

The Millinocket Democrat renewed his party’s call for immediate action on cuts to blunt the impact of the unilateral cuts McKernan recently ordered, followed by consideration in the regular session of a more comprehensive package to balance the budget through mid-1993.

Senate Minority Leader Charles M. Webster, R-Farmington, said he was “embarrassed” by the latest developments.

“I think the whole concept of calling us back into session when there’s nothing to act on is bizarre,” he said, predicting that no budget-balancing legislation would be enacted before March.

“When you’ve got the most liberal Legislature in the country, how can you expect these people to cut spending?” he said.

Ironically, it was one of the Legislature’s more liberal Democrats, Sen. Gerard P. Conley Jr. of Portland, who cast the only dissenting vote among members of his party in the Senate.

Holding a special session now, without any advance agreement, would be “a waste of the taxpayers’ money and would do little but create further animosity” heading into the 1992 session, Conley said.

Senate Majority Leader Nancy Randall Clark charged that stonewalling by McKernan and legislative Republicans was undemocratic.

“The Legislature was created to give Maine people access to public decisions. That access is being denied,” the Freeport Democrat said.