California governor adds own challenge to state recall law

SAN FRANCISCO -- The outcome of California's anything-goes recall effort could be determined by the state's highest court, where Gov. Gray Davis added his own complaints Monday to a docket already crowded with legal challenges to the election.

Legal experts said the governor's case is among the strongest of the five challenges pending before the California Supreme Court, since it addresses fundamental voting-rights issues.

Invoking the specter of a Florida-style polling debacle, the governor's lawyers claimed voters will be disenfranchised because counties do not have enough money or time to properly prepare for the Oct. 7 election.

They also want the court to allow Davis to add his own name to the list of replacements on the recall ballot -- a list that appears to be growing daily. About 300 gubernatorial wannabes have taken out papers in advance of Saturday's official filing deadline.

California election law specifically bars the subject of a recall from appearing as a replacement candidate, but the governor's lawyers say keeping his name off the list would violate the equal-protection rights of people who vote for Davis.

And if that argument does not hold, Davis' lawyers are urging the court to delay the recall vote until the March primary. Without a delay, they say, the counties will have to use outdated punch-card machines and open fewer polling places to save money -- confusing and inconveniencing voters.

"We're asking the Supreme Court here to avoid a train wreck," Davis' attorney, Michael Kahn, told a crowd of reporters after filing the petition in San Francisco. Kahn noted that the U.S. Supreme Court got involved in Bush v. Gore only after all types of voting problems -- and similar legal challenges -- were raised.

The four other Supreme Court challenges include two that would reduce the two-part Oct. 7 ballot to a simple yes or no decision on the recall, eliminating any vote for successors and replacing Davis with Lt. Gov Cruz Bustamante.

Another would remove two propositions from the recall ballot -- including the hot-button "racial privacy initiative" that some experts predict will drive more conservatives than liberals to the polls. The fifth petition questions the $3,500 fee and 65 signatures needed to get on the recall ballot.

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People has raised complaints similar to the issues cited in the petition Davis filed Monday.

"This case has real potential," said Loyola Law School professor Rick Hasen, an election law expert.

Still, it's anyone's guess which way the justices -- six Republicans and one Democrat -- will rule.

Politically, it will be a slam dunk for the Democrats if the court decides the state constitution requires that Bustamante succeed Davis, said Mark Petracca, a University of California, Irvine political science professor.

Though Republicans would "put all their energies into absolutely crucifying Davis," Petracca said, "in some ways it doesn't end up mattering. My guess is, interest in the recall plummets."

Consultants to the recall campaign called the idea of a Davis recall without Republican challengers "preposterous, ridiculous" and unlikely.

"A meteor can fall on the Capitol building and kill all the legislators, too," quipped Recall Davis Committee head Howard Kaloogian. "That's more likely than Bustamante becoming governor by stepping into it."

Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., bankrolled the gathering of the more than 900,000 signatures needed to put the recall question before the voters, and has said he is putting his own name on the ballot. Republican businessman Bill Simon, who lost to Davis in last year's general election, also has taken out nomination papers.

So has Hustler magazine publisher Larry Flynt, a registered Democrat; Green Party candidate Peter Camejo; and a long list of gadflies and publicity seekers who could prove to be spoilers on election day.

Recall consultant Sal Russo said a court decision to block candidates from succeeding Davis would cause a "serious voter revolt" that would damage the Supreme Court.

Field Poll spokesman Mark DiCamillo said he hasn't polled voters about what in effect would be a Davis-Bustamante contest. He calls the growing range of scenarios and possible outcomes a "speculative wonderland."