Roberti Likely to Quit Key Senate Post to Fight Recall : Politics: Officials announce a petition drive against the powerful legislator has qualified for the ballot. The lawmaker also wants to devote time to focus on his bid for state office.

State Sen. David A. Roberti is expected to announce, possibly as early today, that he will step down soon as president pro tempore of the Senate so that he can focus more of his energy on defeating a campaign to recall him.

State officials disclosed Monday that a recall campaign against Roberti has qualified for the ballot.

By resigning from the powerful post he has held since 1980, Roberti, 54, can devote more time to fighting the recall, dealing with the aftermath of the Jan. 17 Northridge earthquake that heavily damaged his district and campaigning for state treasurer, Roberti press secretary Steven Glazer said in an interview Tuesday. Roberti, a Democrat, has announced his intention to run for treasurer in this year’s state election.

Meanwhile, anti-Roberti forces defended themselves Tuesday against charges that they are “gun extremists” and that the recall is fiscally wasteful--costing taxpayers nearly $1 million to recall a senator who, because of term limits, will be forced to leave office by the end of this year.

Roberti has charged that the recall is being led by gun lobbyists angry at him for his 1989 measure banning the sale of military-style assault rifles in California. In a news release Monday, Roberti also inveighed against the cost of the election, saying the money could be better spent “putting more officers on the street and caring for the thousands of people hurt by the earthquake.”

But veteran Republican activist Dolores White, a recall organizer who plans to run in the upcoming special election, called Roberti’s charges that her group is the puppet of gun lobbyists a smoke screen that’s designed to obscure the fact that the recall proponents are urging Roberti’s removal because he does not live in his Van Nuys district, has condoned corruption by other state senators and has been soft on crime.

White also denied that the recall was a waste of money. Having Roberti in office “even for a few months more will cost us a lot more money” because of his big-government views, she contended. “Besides, if the public perception is that we have cleaned up the state Legislature (by removing Roberti), that will be worth 10 times the cost of the election.”

Still, Arch Hardyment, executive director of the Los Angeles Taxpayers Assn., is among those who say they are troubled by the cost and timing of the recall.

“It’s unfortunate that it costs so much and that there’s so little time for Roberti to serve anyway,” Hardyment said. But he refused to directly criticize the recall movement: “I hesitate to criticize people for exercising their rights.”

Roberti’s office also sought Tuesday to bolster its claim that the recall movement is a gun lobby production by disclosing the contents of a complaint filed with state Fair Political Practices Commission.

The complaint alleges that Californians Against Corruption received $5,000 in 1992 from the National Rifle Assn. in its campaign to defeat Roberti’s 1992 reelection bid. The complaint was filed in September with the FPPC, the state campaign finance watchdog agency.

According to Glazer, the contribution was not reported in campaign disclosure statements filed by Californians Against Corruption in a bid to hide the group’s philosophical and financial links. The group is now actively involved in the recall movement against Roberti.

At a news conference Monday, Roberti previewed the campaign he will run to beat back the recall.

There, Roberti was flanked by the survivors of several gun-related mass killings, including the spouses of three people who died in July when a gunman opened fire on workers in a San Francisco office building, and a teacher from the Stockton school where five pupils were killed by a man with an AK-47 assault rifle. All praised Roberti for backing gun control laws.

Roberti said he expects strong support for his fight from national gun control groups, including Handgun Control Inc. The organization is run by Sarah Brady, wife of James Brady, the former White House press secretary who was severely wounded in a 1981 assassination attempt against then-President Ronald Reagan.

Meanwhile, another leader in the anti-Roberti movement worried Tuesday that state election law deadlines may make it difficult to mount a large field of candidates against Roberti.

“This is kind of working against us, but we’ll just have to work with it as best we can,” said William Dominguez, chairman of the Coalition to Restore Government Integrity.

The more candidates the better because each one will have his or her own constituency who will vote against Roberti, Dominguez said. But the period for candidates to file their nominating papers may end as early as Feb. 3, making it difficult for potential opponents to get organized.

Still, the recall is already a landmark. Only one recall against a state official has qualified in the past 80 years, Deputy Secretary of State Tony Miller said Monday. Miller also said the recall election probably would be scheduled for April 12 and cost Los Angeles County taxpayers about $900,000.

The actual date of the election will be set by Gov. Pete Wilson.

Expected to succeed Roberti as president pro tempore is Sen. Bill Lockyer (D-Hayward). A news conference was scheduled Tuesday to announce Roberti’s resignation from the post, but was canceled so that Roberti could give more thought to what committee chairmanship he wanted Lockyer to give him when he returned to the ranks of the Senate, a Lockyer aide said. The president pro tempore, with the advice of the Rules Committee that he or she chairs, makes such assignments.