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Foes of Davis recall post tactics on Web In an e-mail message and Internet posting titled "How to Advocate Against the Recall," Davis supporters were told, "It is OK to stand in front of their table or approach potential signers before they do, or otherwise inhibit their activity." The memo instructs people to say they are "offended by being harassed" and file complaints with managers of stores. "Remember, the longer you engage them, the fewer signatures they can collect," said the memo distributed by Taxpayers Against the Governor's Recall, a union-funded group. The memo also includes a telephone hot line to report the location of recall petition circulators. The street-level effort to recall Davis has created passionate feelings on both sides as Republican organizers make steady progress on the petition to oust the Democratic governor. About 40 percent of the signatures needed to force a recall election have been turned in so far. The deadline is Sept. 2. Davis supporters say they are simply exercising their constitutional rights when they confront recall circulators. "If anyone is suggesting that speaking out against the recall -- exercising their First Amendment rights to speak out in the presence of signature gatherers -- is somehow illegal, I would seriously question that," said Carroll Wills, spokesman for Taxpayers Against the Governor's Recall. "People have the right to free speech. Supposedly that is what the petition process is all about." LAW COVERS THREATS, BRIBES California election law makes it a crime to threaten petition gatherers with violence or damage their property. It's also illegal to bribe petition circulators to abandon their work. Recall petition workers across the state said intense feelings about the recall are prompting fights and verbal assaults. Some petition supervisors say they were threatened from the start -- with a boycott by the major signature- gathering companies if they handled the recall petition at all. "I've been a coordinator for three years and collecting signatures for 11 years, and I've never seen anything like this," said Paula Wagner, 48, who supervises about 50 petition gatherers in Orange County. "I was warned from the very beginning that if I hooked up with this recall I was going to alienate myself with other companies, and when this was over, what was I going to do?" Two petitions are being circulated regarding the recall. One is the official, legally binding initiative that would force an election. The other is a plebiscite that anyone can sign that expresses disdain for the recall. Legions of independent contractors are being paid $1 a signature, in most cases. Tom Bader, coordinating the signature-gathering effort for the Rescue California recall committee, said confrontations involving petition workers in San Francisco were so frequent that he scaled back and concentrated his efforts elsewhere, including San Diego, Riverside and Orange counties. Recent figures from the secretary of state show that only 7 percent of the recall signatures are coming from the Bay Area. "These people are actually being told on the Internet to file false complaints," Bader said about the memo. "The circulators have been threatened all over the state that they are not going to work on any other petition. Then there is the physical aspect of it."
Bader said a frequent tactic of recall opponents is to stand next to circulators and talk loudly on their cell phones or thrust a "Who's Behind the Recall"
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