SACRAMENTO -- State Senate Republicans on Wednesday elected Modesto's Dave Cogdill as their next leader, giving the San Joaquin Valley a monopoly on GOP power in the Legislature.

Cogdill -- whose district includes eastern Fresno County -- will take over April 15 from Irvine's Dick Ackerman, who is termed out at the end of the year.

GOP leadership of the Assembly is in the hands of Clovis' Mike Villines, who has held the post for more than a year. As members of the minority party, Villines and Cogdill have less power than leading Democrats but will take on a key role in the ongoing fight over the state budget, which requires some GOP votes.

Like Villines, Cogdill is strongly conservative, especially on fiscal matters. He vowed to resist pressure to raise taxes to close the state's growing budget hole. The gap is now at $16 billion, without counting spending cuts and other actions approved last week.

"We have a spending problem, not a revenue problem," Cogdill said at a Capitol news conference. The budget debate is "about figuring out how we can better use the state resources to meet the needs of the people of this state and do it without increasing taxes."

The last Valley representative to lead Senate Republicans was Ken Maddy, who held the spot from 1987 to 1995.

The region's hold on the two leadership spots signifies the continuing shift of Republican power to inland California, said Tony Quinn, a Sacramento-based political analyst and former Republican legislative aide.

While the GOP has lost influence in coastal regions over the past two decades, "the one place that [Republican representation] is growing is in the Central Valley," said Quinn, co-editor of the California Target Book, which handicaps state political races.

Still, Villines and Cogdill are not in a position to steer much special treatment to the Valley because most bills do not require Republican votes. Villines, for instance, has carried a fairly light legislative load as leader and has focused more on keeping his caucus together.

One of Cogdill's main jobs will be to help raise campaign funds for other Republicans. That includes helping fellow Sen. Jeff Denham of Atwater, who faces a recall effort partly funded by a political committee with close ties to Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata, D-Oakland.

Cogdill's path to power was smoothed last week when another leading candidate, Lancaster's George Runner, withdrew from contention. Runner dropped out after his wife, Assembly Member Sharon Runner, revealed that she is suffering from a rare lung disease.

The son of a meat cutter, Cogdill was born in Long Beach and raised in San Bernardino. His family moved to Mono County when Cogdill was in high school, and he later moved to Modesto, where he served on the City Council for most of the 1990s.

Cogdill was elected to the Assembly in 2000 and moved to the Senate last year. His district runs from Kings Canyon National Park through eastern Fresno County and Clovis, north to Lodi.

Cogdill has a low-key style and a good grasp of the arcane rules that guide legislative procedure.

He took on an influential role last year as Senate Republicans dug in their heels and refused to vote for a state budget they believed contained too much spending. The standoff lasted 51 days.

This year's budget situation is exponentially worse. Democrats have suggested that tax increases might be inevitable in order to avoid devastating spending cuts. On Wednesday, nonpartisan Legislative Analyst Elizabeth Hill recommended closing several tax loopholes as a way out of the fiscal mess.

Cogdill has already voted against one of the proposals -- closing the so-called "yacht tax" loophole that allows buyers of boats, motor homes and airplanes to avoid paying sales taxes if they take possession outside of the state's borders and leave it there for a specified period. The measure passed the Senate but did not draw enough GOP votes in the Assembly.

Still, Cogdill did not rule out closing other loopholes.

"As we move through the year, I think we'll be analyzing all of those things," he said.

Cogdill, who does not term out until 2014, has also taken a leading role on water issues. Like Villines, Cogdill has pushed for state borrowing to build a dam east of Fresno at Temperance Flat, upstream of Millerton Lake. Talks on a multibillion-dollar state water bond collapsed last year because of a partisan divide over dams.

Cogdill today will take part in a private water meeting involving Gov. Schwarzenegger, Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein, and Democratic state lawmakers. But with the budget debate dominating, expectations are low that a water deal will be reached anytime soon, if ever.