CA: Crises spark effort to recall unpopular governor

Steve Erie, a political science professor at UC San Diego, said indeed, there would not even be a recall had it not been for the multibillion-dollar hole that opened in the state's general fund last year. The deficit was only partially closed with the tardy passage of a spending plan in July.

"The budget crisis is the driving force," Erie said.

Because of that force, and because of the $1.7 million Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Vista, pumped into the petition drive, Davis is facing an unprecedented Oct. 7 recall election 11 months after he was re-elected to a second term.

Davis faces an uphill battle to beat back the recall. The Field Poll last week reported that 55 percent of likely voters intend to boot him out of office while 40 percent intend to keep him there. Davis could at least take solace in that the numbers were down slightly from the 58 percent who wanted to recall him a month ago.

However, his job approval rating among California adults continues to hover at an all-time low.

A one-two punch

Polls to measure Davis' approval ratings show the two major crises of his nearly five years of governing the Golden State ---- the failed experiment with electricity deregulation and the biggest budget deficit in state history ---- delivering a one-two punch to his popularity.

Riding high following his election in 1998, Davis basked in approval ratings as high as 62 percent in January 2001. But, according to the San Francisco-based Public Policy Institute of California, during the next 12 months, in a period darkened by rolling blackouts all over the state and soaring utility bills in San Diego County, Davis' job approval rating slipped to 46 percent by year's end.

Davis never did recover from that electric shock. His approval marks stayed in the mid-40s percentage range last year; it did not improve.

Then his popularity took another tumble as implications of a budget shortfall of more than $30 billion-plus ---- more than three times the number he put out during his re-election campaign ---- began to sink in.

From October to February, his approval marks plummeted from 45 percent to 24 percent in February, according to the Public Policy Institute. That February poll was taken in the days following Davis' Jan. 10 unveiling of his 2003-04 budget.

GOP says Davis lied

Recall backers and Republican leaders suggest that Davis deliberately misled Californians about the size of the shortfall, to avoid jeopardizing his re-election bid.

"They were trying to hide it," said Senate Minority Leader Jim Brulte, R-Rancho Cucamonga.

Davis administration officials dispute that assertion, saying they were taken by surprise when the economy went further south than expected.

"Absolutely not," Davis press secretary Steve Maviglio said, when asked if Davis lied to the public. "If you look at what the legislative analyst was projecting, what she was saying was very similar."

Around the time of the election, Legislative Analyst Elizabeth Hill, who has a reputation for putting out accurate fiscal estimates independent of partisan influence, was projecting a $10 billion shortfall in the coming year, while saying the then-current 2002-03 budget was balanced. And that is what Davis was saying as he went around the state campaigning for re-election.

"If anything, the governor has been more conservative than our own nonpartisan analyst," said Chris Woods, Democratic financial consultant for the Assembly Budget Committee. So the Davis administration did not mislead anyone ---- "unless Liz Hill was in on the 'budget conspiracy.' And she's considered the budget nun."

A moving target

However, the budget shortfall estimate would soon become a moving target.

A week after the Nov. 5 election, Hill put the shortfall at $21 billion. When Davis presented his 2003-04 budget in January, he pegged it to be $35 billion. The target eventually landed at $38 billion when Davis delivered his revised budget plan in May.

The rapidly changing numbers following the election hinted that Davis was hiding something, Brulte said. He said the numbers also show that the governor responded too slowly to the economic downturn and corresponding decline in revenue.

Davis' slow response to the budget crisis also was demonstrated by his decision to wait until early September to propose forming a bipartisan panel of finance experts to study California's long-term fiscal problems and recommend solutions, said Assembly Minority Leader Dave Cox, R-Fair Oaks. Davis chose former White House chief of staff Leon Panetta to head up the panel, which would be asked to submit a report by year's end. But the panel is on hold until Oct. 7.

"It's no surprise that, once again, Gov. Davis waited too long to act on a crisis to have any measurable effect," Cox said. "The timing of this announcement appears to be a halfhearted attempt to convince the public that he is working on the budget."

Davis also was accused of dragging his feet during the electricity crisis.

For starters, critics say, the governor and other state officials paid scant attention to the skyrocketing utility bills that San Diego County residents sweated paying in the summer of 2000. During the next several months, Davis balked at expert advice to raise rates, sign long-term contracts, implement emergency conservation measures and waive air pollution rules ---- until the lights went out on the Capitol Christmas tree.

"He really hasn't exercised much leadership in the crises," said Shaun Bowler, political science professor at UC Riverside.

Patient, or tardy?

Maviglio said Davis was purposely patient in addressing both major problems. The governor wanted to listen to experts and weigh all available information before making a decision, he said. A "knee-jerk" reaction could have done irreparable harm.

Maviglio also pointed out that, under Davis, California was the first to adopt landmark laws on family leave and global warming. Davis boosted California's national ranking in per-student spending on public schools to 35th, after it had sunk to 41st among the 50 states by the mid-'90s.

"You don't do those things without strong leadership," Maviglio said. "We put on the books some of the most progressive legislation in the country."

Besides the suggestion that Davis is a weak leader, people inside and outside politics don't like the 60-year-old governor. The most recent Public Policy Institute poll found 55 percent dislike him regardless of how they feel about his policies.

Political analysts said the widespread dislike is partly a result of his aggressive fund raising, which netted a record $70 million for his 2002 re-election campaign. That many contributors were companies doing business with the state also turned people off.

Then there is his reputation for smearing opponents. Many felt Davis raised the California mudslinging bar last year with his uninvited, but highly successful, venture into the GOP primary. His $10 million advertising campaign knocked out former Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan.

As well, Davis is just, well, gray, analysts say.

"He's never really been a popular figure," Bowler said. "He's not charismatic."

Then there's the kiss

Davis is considered so bland a personality that supporters felt the need to trot out a statement from Cybill Shepherd recently. The actress said she found the then-24-year-old travel agent to be a rather "good kisser" when she ran into him on the beach in Hawaii 36 years ago.

To a large degree, leading Democrats say, the recall started out as, and continues to be, mostly a popularity contest.

Allan Hoffenblum, a GOP strategist in Los Angeles, disagrees. He said the recall is about a huge vacuum of bold, visionary leadership that the Golden State needs at a crucial crossroad in its history.

Hoffenblum said one need only recall the endless bickering of lawmakers over the new budget, which bears little resemblance to Davis' January plan, to see how ineffective he is at leading.

"He took a back seat on the whole budget negotiations," Hoffenblum said. "His relationship with the Legislature was so poor that nobody paid attention to him."

But Erie, the UCSD professor, said any governor would have faced the institutional constraints of a long string of ballot initiatives, dating to 1978's landmark Proposition 13, which slashed property taxes. Half the budget, Erie noted, is out of the governor's hands because it must go for education and to health care for the poor.

And Woods, Assembly Democrats' finance expert, said recall advocates are forgetting that there was broad bipartisan support for ramping up spending on kindergarten-through-12th-grade schools and delivering tax relief in the form of greatly reduced car registration fees.

"The current spending level for education then became the new Proposition 98 base (for future budgets)," Woods said. And, as the furor over the October tripling of the car fee proves, it is hard to take back tax cuts, he said.

So Republicans were just as responsible for the soaring state spending as were Democrats, Woods said.

Replaying the 'Super Bowl'

And, so, Democrats say the election is really about sour grapes.

Davis says he simply became a target of opportunity. Conservative Republicans were upset about losing a close race in November (GOP nominee Bill Simon fell 5 percentage points short) and were emboldened by Davis' weakening approval numbers.

Davis says he won the election fair and square, but now, like a sore loser in a sports championship, Republicans want to play the game over.

"It would be like the Oakland Raiders saying, 'Well, we didn't like the way we played in the Super Bowl, so we want to play again,' " Davis said last month in a radio interview.

But even more than sour grapes, Davis maintains this exercise is an abuse of the recall power established long ago in the California Constitution.

"You normally don't have a recall unless there's some abuse of office, criminality or outrageous activity," he said.

Well, yes and no.

A product of the Progressive Era

The roots of California's recall power go all the way to the Progressive Era of the early 20th century, when Californians sought to dilute the then-enormous influence of Southern Pacific Railroad, analysts say. Following Hiram Johnson's election as governor in 1910, his administration steered through a series of sweeping reforms, including the broad powers to change laws through the initiative process and to recall public officials.

Erie said the recall provision "was really about bribery and corruption." However, the constitution does not state as much; it only requires proponents to state their reasons.

The official grounds for the Davis recall?

"Gross mismanagement of California finances by overspending taxpayers' money, threatening public safety by cutting funds to local governments, failing to account for the exorbitant cost of the energy fiasco, and failing in general to deal with the state's major problems until they get to the crisis stage," according to the recall petition.

Costa, the man who launched the recall, agrees that Republican and Democratic lawmakers are just as much to blame for the state's problems, but it is more practical to recall Davis than to target the entire 120-member Legislature.

"We're sending a message to everybody in the bureaucracy ---- and he is the vehicle for that message," Costa said.