Jackson Announces Bid to Recall Wilson : Politics: Civil rights leader, charging race-baiting and divisiveness, says petition effort will start by late August. Governor’s spokesman says state’s leader is unfazed.

Calling Gov. Pete Wilson’s style of leadership divisive and race-baiting, the Rev. Jesse Jackson on Wednesday announced the start of a recall campaign to remove Wilson from office.

Jackson, flanked by more than 20 religious, labor and community activists at a Los Angeles church, said Wilson’s stand against affirmative action and his quest for the presidency in 1996 will be fought with voter registration, lawsuits and the recall campaign.

Jackson and several local members of his Rainbow Coalition said the governor’s main job should be to find a way to ease dire economic conditions and stop job losses faced by California residents.

“He’s running for the White House, which he will not get,” Jackson said. “He should focus on relief in this state.”

A Wilson spokesman said the governor does not fear a recall campaign because he is confident he is doing what is fair for most California residents.

Wilson spokesman Paul Kranhold said Jackson, as well as President Clinton, repeatedly confuse the issue of civil rights, which Wilson enforces, with affirmative action, which the governor opposes because it discriminates against some residents on the basis of race.

“It’s classic political obfuscation,” Kranhold said. “It won’t throw him off at all.”

Jackson and members of the Rainbow Coalition said that some details of the Wilson recall campaign are still being worked out but that by Aug. 28, the anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s march on Washington in 1963, a petition effort will be under way.

Jackson said the process of collecting signatures for the recall will probably last until March. The signatures of about 600,000 registered voters would be necessary to get a recall on the ballot.

Organizers said they hope intense voter registration efforts will bring more residents to the polls and eventually defeat Wilson. In addition, cases of alleged sexual or racial discrimination will generate lawsuits, they said.

“Ours is a moral mission. We simply want justice and fairness,” Jackson said. “We have the moral obligation to fight for that which is right.

“Affirmative action is a conservative remedy to let in those who have been locked out,” he said. “If you end affirmative action tomorrow, it would not bring jobs back to Long Beach,” whose naval shipyard will be closed soon.

Jackson and Wilson sparred last week during an emotional debate leading up to a historic decision by the University of California regents to abolish race-based preferences in student admissions, hiring and contracting.

The issue has become a factor in the 1996 presidential race, with Jackson pressuring Clinton to intervene in the university’s decision while Wilson uses the subject to demonstrate what he considers strong leadership on controversial issues.

In a long-awaited national speech last week, Clinton said he supports affirmative action and preference programs for women and minorities.

On Wednesday at Holman United Methodist Church, local activists joined Jackson in saying Wilson would do some good if he acknowledged that women and minorities continue to battle unfair practices in a number of arenas. The repeal of affirmative action, along with job losses expected because of the statewide budget crisis, would be devastating to many Los Angeles residents and county employees, they said.

Wilson “has been remiss in his duties,” said Gilbert Cedillo, general manager of Service Employees International Union, Local 660. “The biggest blow . . . will come from losing 18,000 [Los Angeles County] jobs.”