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Davis allies now fighting recall effort A consortium of organized labor, firefighters, teachers, environmentalists and religious leaders will meet today at a Sacramento fire station to announce the formation of Taxpayers Against the Recall. The anti-recall forces -- longtime campaign contributors with hundreds of thousands of members and the ability to quickly raise millions of dollars -- expect to raise perhaps $3 million, organizers said. Their statewide blitz began Memorial Day weekend, with an estimated 500 paid signature gatherers asking thousands of voters to sign petitions opposing "abuse of the recall process." The group is being formed to counter the momentum behind Rescue California, a recall committee fueled by U.S. Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Vista, a gubernatorial hopeful and multimillionaire from San Diego County. "It says to me that they know we're serious and that they're in big trouble," said Rescue California's director, David Gilliard. "What they're doing is preparing for a major battle." The anti-recall petitions have no legal standing and no ability to prevent a recall election should Issa and other proponents collect the nearly 900,000 signatures of voter support required to qualify for the ballot. But the new campaign could have one significant effect: interfering with recall signature-gathering efforts by offering petition circulators better-paying work. The recall effort was started in February by the anti-tax group People's Advocate and a former Republican assemblyman, Howard Kaloogian. Despite Davis' 24 percent approval ratings, he and his supporters took little action until Issa got involved last month. Disorganized and lacking money, the volunteer campaigns claimed to have collected more than 100,000 signatures; as of Tuesday, the California secretary of state's office has received only 18,590. Rescue California has taken in more than $500,000, mostly from Issa, and Gilliard said Tuesday that he is preparing to submit more than 200,000 signatures from voters who support a recall. Meanwhile, Kimball Petition Management Inc., a Southern California firm already paying circulators to collect signatures for a banking privacy initiative, has been tapped to organize the anti-recall signature gathering. The firm is authorized to pay $1 per signature collected, 25 cents more than last week's going rate paid by Rescue California. "It's being used to try to tie up the professional petition circulators so that they won't work on this recall," said Tom Bader, who is directing signature gathering for Rescue California. "It's just shameless." Dan Terry, president of the California Professional Firefighters and co-chairman of Taxpayers Against the Recall, defended the strategy. "If we have to intervene in this process to show the recall people they do not represent the majority of the public, we think that's the best and quickest strategy," he said. The group's members include Miguel Contreras, executive secretary of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor; California Federation of Teachers President Mary Bergan; the Rev. Cecil Murray of the First AME Church in Los Angeles; and Fred Keeley, executive director of the Planning and Conservation League and a former Democratic state assemblyman. Taxpayers Against the Recall "is not being coordinated with the Governor's Office or the governor's committee," said firefighters' spokesman Carroll Wills. Roger Salazar, a political adviser to the governor, said Davis "has been very focused on the work that the people have elected him to do. That's the best approach he can take." However, a Davis administration official, California Labor and Workforce Development Agency Secretary Steve Smith, is expected to announce today that he is stepping down from his government post to run the new anti-recall group. Smith could not be reached for comment.
Democratic activists said privately that Davis would likely keep
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