Brown wants to balance the state's $26.6 billion deficit with $12.5 billion in spending cuts and a special election ballot measure that would ask voters to extend higher taxes on income, sales and vehicles.

GOP lawmakers so far have refused to support his plan. Brown says many of them are beholden to the no-tax pledge they signed from Norquist's Washington, D.C.-based group, Americans for Tax Reform.

Nehring sent his invitation to the governor on Wednesday, noting that Brown enjoys a good debate and a challenge.

"As governor we appreciate that you've regularly engaged Republican leaders -- a phenomenon some of our Republican legislators are not used to from the governor's office. In that spirit I hope you accept this offer," Nehring wrote.

A spokesman for Brown, Gil Duran, said the governor is too busy working on the budget to attend the convention, but his corgi, Sutter, might be available for the debate.

"That would be more of a fair fight for Mr. Norquist," he said. "It doesn't really merit the governor's attention today."

Norquist called that response "childish."

"That might have been clever in fourth grade. If the governor's not confident in his arguments, then he should probably say those things ... what he's telling you is he is not confident," Norquist said in a telephone interview. "I thought he was better than that; I thought he might have learned from his previous stint" as governor, from 1975 to 1983.

Norquist says he would be willing to fly across the country and take time away from his two young children if Brown is willing to engage in a serious debate "about why he wants other people to raise taxes to pay for his overspending.