California Republicans have officially gone off the deep end.

Last week, State Senate Republicans helped shut down dozens of domestic violence shelters in retaliation for alleged sleight of hand by Democrats.

The Democrats’ offense, supposedly, was their refusal to cancel a program that helps low-income Californians do their taxes. Democrats promised to consider the move, but the caucus ultimately kept the program going. In response, Republicans blocked more than twenty bills that required 2/3 support:

Other casualties included bills to keep dozens of domestic-violence shelters from closing, to help cities and counties borrow while the state raids their treasuries, to distribute federal money to counties for swine flu treatment, and to implement a new hospital fee that would qualify the state for $2 billion in federal money.

Six of those shelters have already been forced to close. Amazingly, Senate Republicans continue to defend their actions. But as they’re quickly finding out, there really is no defense:

[Senate Republican leader Dennis] Hollingsworth contended that "the Democratic leadership did not uphold their previous budget agreements."

But the minority leader wasn't available to discuss exactly which agreements he thought had been broken, and his staff said it didn't know.

This is typical behavior from California Republicans -- always blaming everyone else, and always playing the victim.

But now real victims of domestic violence have nowhere to go to escape their abusers. And the truly sick part about this is that Senate Republicans freely admit they held the shelters hostage in order to feel powerful, with one senator bragging that "This was an opportunity for Republicans to have some leverage."

I hope they’re proud of themselves -- because no one else is.