Issa Likely to Run Even if Vote Delayed

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Vista) said Thursday that he would probably run for governor on a recall ballot even if the election is delayed until next spring, and he dismissed recent questions about past arrests as irrelevant to his goal of ousting Gov. Gray Davis from office.

Issa has spent more than $1 million of his personal fortune to back the effort to recall Davis, along with additional money to open his gubernatorial campaign. He said there was no cap on his potential donations.

Recall backers said Thursday that they are beginning their final push for the nearly 900,000 valid voter signatures needed to place the recall on the ballot. The timing of any recall election will be determined after those signatures are tallied.

Issa previously had indicated he would run for governor only if the recall were placed on a special ballot this fall. In an interview Thursday, however, he said he will remain a candidate even if the special election occurs in March, as long as “my candidacy is necessary.”

“Right now I’m the only candidate, so I have to assume that you don’t walk away,” he said. “You don’t recall a governor and not be a candidate, because you can’t beat someone with no one.”

Other potential Republican candidates, including actor Arnold Schwarzenegger, are mulling whether to run. Last year’s Green Party gubernatorial nominee, Peter Camejo, also intends to run, but the state’s ranking Democrats are standing behind Davis and refusing to put their names on a replacement ballot.

Issa, a second-term congressman, has reported assets of more than $99 million, wealth earned from the sale of car alarms such as Viper, Python and Wasp. In recent days, he has faced reports about arrests for weapons violations and car theft in his past. He faced similar disclosures during his unsuccessful 1998 run for the Republican nomination for the Senate.

The San Francisco Chronicle reported this week that Issa had been arrested twice on weapons charges. The first -- which Issa said involved a knife -- came in connection with the May 1972 theft of a red Maserati from a car dealership in Cleveland; those charges were later dropped. Later that year, as a college student in Michigan, he was accused of possessing an unregistered gun.

Last month, the paper reported that Issa had been arrested in 1979 on suspicion that he had played a role in the theft of his own Mercedes-Benz by his older brother, William. The Chronicle reported that the men, who pleaded not guilty, were ordered to stand trial but the case was dismissed after prosecutors declined to pursue it due to lack of evidence.

Issa said Thursday that there are no more unrevealed arrests or indictments in his past. His encounters with the law, he said, “haunted me a little bit when I went to get my security clearance.”

As he has before, Issa attributed his early troubles to William, who has five felony convictions and has acknowledged having a long career as a car thief.

“Have I had sort of the bad luck of being around my brother? Yes,” said Issa, who was in Los Angeles making the rounds of local television and radio stations. “There’s a reason that I have no felony convictions. The only thing I ever did was pay a $100 fine, and it was for a pocketknife. Or, no, actually it was for the unregistered [gun].”

He described the unregistered weapon found in his possession as “an unloaded, never-fired, in-the-box, little, teeny pistol.”

Issa said the gun was not his, although he did not say to whom it belonged or why he had it.

“No, it wasn’t mine. I’ve never owned a gun, er, I’ve never registered a gun,” he said. “But that’s neither here nor there.”

Issa characterized the reports about his problems with the law as beside the point.

“The real question is not did something happen or not happen decades ago, he said. “The real question is what’s happened in the last five years. What have I done for the last 15 to 20 years? Have I been a good citizen? ... And I think I can make the case that I have done well because I work hard and I work well with other people.

“Over that same period of time, Gray came up through the ranks and finally hit the Peter Principle, finally hit the point where his good political talents didn’t turn into good chief executive talents.”

Roger Salazar, a Davis political advisor, called Issa’s comments “just ridiculous.”

“We are facing the same problems in California that the president is facing at the national level, that 40-some governors are facing in other states,” Salazar said.

“The difference is that, unlike the national government, California has to balance the budget and, unlike most other states, California needs to pass the budget by a two-thirds vote.”