Rescue California

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Governor, lead or get out of the way

June 15, 2003

Not long ago, the effort to recall Gov. Gray Davis could easily be dismissed as a shot in the dark, given fund-raising and signature-gathering difficulties and a general sense that other issues were of more pressing importance. After all, the governor had recently been re-elected to another term and it was time to move on.

But in recent days, those attitudes have changed. The recall effort has gotten a big boost from U.S. Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Vista, who has the money to underwrite an effective recall campaign. And now a poll from the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California shows that 51 percent of likely California voters support removing the governor from office, with 43 percent saying they want him to stay. One-third of Democrats support the recall effort, according to the poll.

This is an astounding thing. PPIC pollster Mark Baldassare told the Contra Costa Times that "We're on the verge of creating more history involving direct democracy."

Increased financial and public support for a recall aren't reasons to support it. These things ebb and flow. Although recalls are an effective form of direct democracy that keep politicians in check, recall elections should be used sparingly and only for the most serious reasons. Does this rise to the test?

It's a close call, even for an editorial board that has strongly disagreed with the governor on one issue after another, and which has been troubled by his apparent "pay for play" fund-raising ethic in Sacramento. Ultimately, our support for the recall stems not from either of those issues, but from the sense that Gov. Davis seems temperamentally incapable of making hard choices and leading the state out of the latest in a long series of crises.

He refuses to lead. No matter the problem, he stands immobile, allowing it to snowball into a crisis. His immobility led to the state's electricity mess, and the continuing high prices California residents and businesses will be paying for years to come. And Californians will be paying for years for his willingness to sign into law overly generous pension benefits for public employees, and for his refusal to deal strongly with the ongoing budget and workers' compensation crises.

The governor's proposal to deal with a predicted $38 billion budget deficit was pure Davis: Split the difference, defer hard decisions about structural changes and hope someone else fixes the problem, all the while insisting that the current mess wasn't his fault.

California is on a verge of an early 1990s-style economic breakdown unless the budget and workers' compensation crises are resolved quickly and the state's anti-business climate is reversed. These problems aren't entirely the governor's fault. More blame rests with voters who have turned the Legislature over to left-wing ideologues (and, of course, a recall could give us a more effective left-wing governor, which even some Republicans fear could happen). Nevertheless, the governor is the last line of defense. Because he won't lead, it's time to move him out of the way.