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Recall booster finds fuel It was Saturday morning, Feb. 1, and images of space shuttle Columbia disintegrating over Texas seared his TV screen. For a rapt nation, time stood still. But for Costa, an anti-tax crusader and veteran recall instigator, the political clock ticked on. "Looking at the calendar," he said, "I knew it was time to move." Costa's "notice of intention to circulate recall petition" culminated weeks of behind-the-scenes rumbling in Sacramento and lifted the curtain on an improbable political drama. A few months ago, a Davis recall seemed like a partisan lark, weak on cash and groping for traction. Now, bankrolled by a car-alarm magnate-turned-congressman, it appears all but certain to reach the ballot. Organizers said last week they had turned in more than the 897,000 signatures needed to make Davis the first California governor ever to face a recall election. They expect to reach 1.2 million signatures in a few weeks, figuring some will be ruled invalid. Recall backers are pushing for a fall election, which could cost as much as $40 million. They are pushing for a fast verification process to prevent a delay to the March primary ballot, when more Democrats would flock to the polls. Davis backers see a shameless coup attempt by right-wing sore losers still smarting from November, when the Davis campaign outspent and outperformed that of troubled GOP nominee Bill Simon. Recall backers say public anger over Davis runs deep enough to ignite a populist movement. Whatever the perspective, the Davis recall's fast evolution owes much to the governor's free-falling approval numbers, to a handful of disparate politicos who saw ample opportunity in those figures, and to the power of a well-heeled patron. Rebellious ingredients Ted Costa was fed up. It was early December, a little more than a month after Gov. Davis served the Republicans an election-night feast of cooked goose and humble pie. A few weeks after the election, Davis raised the stakes on the budget debacle. Estimates of the budget gap had zoomed past the $20 billion mark and were rising quickly to $35 billion. Democratic and Republican legislators, mired in gridlock, floated the idea of a ballot measure to give voters the choice of higher taxes or deep spending cuts. Costa, director of People's Advocate, a tax watchdog group, saw Davis' imprint and considered it a political bailout, he said. "I figured, if the dirty bastards are going to do that, (Davis) ought to be on the ballot with them," said Costa, describing one of the first baby steps into recall talk. He teamed up with Shawn Steel, then the outgoing chairman of the state GOP. "You know, we can recall this guy," Costa says he told Steel. "I was thinking it would be a good populist movement. He was already in a tailspin in the polls." Steel, a sharp-tongued, titular party head, had just pledged to lead recall campaigns against any Republican legislator who voted for a tax increase. That drew the censure of the state GOP's board of directors. Costa, a loyal defender of the recall process, bristled at the reaction. California's recall provision, approved by voters in 1911, does not specify particular reasons why an official may be recalled. "Sufficiency of reason is not reviewable," it says. "I look at the recall as a tool that's open to the people," said Costa. "It's part of our social compact in California. It's not negotiable." Costa polled the members of his anti-tax group. The result: near unanimous support for a Davis recall effort. He began planning. A piece of the action Howard Kaloogian was bored. |
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