Big Names Warn of Chaos in a Davis Recall

Former Secretary of State Warren Christopher and other leaders of California’s business and labor establishment on Wednesday denounced the proposed recall of Gov. Gray Davis as a threat to the state’s economy.

The group’s warning of potential economic “chaos” came as the governor’s political team tested options for raising doubts among voters about the campaign to unseat Davis. The Democratic governor has not settled on the main themes of the upcoming campaign, but advisors said it is clear that they would try to frame the election as a choice between stability and upheaval.

To convey that message Wednesday, Davis allies assembled a blue-chip group of business leaders: Christopher, the longtime Los Angeles attorney and chief diplomat during the Clinton administration; Los Angeles home-building and financial services titan Eli Broad; San Francisco developer Walter Shorenstein; and investment banker F. Warren Hellman.

“I simply think we can’t tolerate the chaos that will inevitably ensue if the recall goes forward,” Christopher told reporters in a conference call with the group, which included Art Pulaski, leader of the California Labor Federation, AFL-CIO.

Christopher and the others warned that an election to unseat a governor in the midst of a severe fiscal crisis would worsen the state’s budget problems and destabilize the economy, driving away jobs and investment.

“The recall is self-destructive -- even suicidal for California,” Shorenstein said.

The aggregation of business leaders was billed as bipartisan, although it had a distinctly Democratic cast. The only registered Republican in the group is Hellman, but he is also a major Democratic Party donor. Christopher is the Democratic Party’s elder statesman in California; Broad and Shorenstein are top Democratic donors courted by state and national candidates. Pulaski has been a key member of Davis’ campaign team.

Hellman said the recall would keep California’s economy “stuck in reverse.”

Broad, citing the state’s $38-billion budget shortfall, described the recall as the final ingredient of “a perfect storm for economic disaster.”

“It’s going to guarantee that our economic malaise will continue,” he said.

Recall supporters dismissed the warnings as nonsense. They contend that the state’s economic and fiscal troubles stem from Davis’ mismanagement and that his departure would lead to a recovery.

“It’s a measure of the establishment being out of touch,” said Ken Khachigian, chief strategist for the gubernatorial campaign of Rep. Darrell Issa, the San Diego County Republican who spent more than $1.5 million on the petition effort to qualify the Davis referendum for the ballot. Recall organizers this week stopped their drive for voter signatures, saying they had collected far more than the nearly 900,000 needed to place the measure on the ballot.

Khachigian recalled that in 1978, opponents of Proposition 13 raised the same threats of chaos in their unsuccessful attempts to stop the ballot measure that capped property-tax hikes.

“Sometimes the people are smarter than the establishment thinks,” he said. “I think this is one of those cases.”

The statements by Christopher and the other business leaders were the latest in a series of media events organized by Davis allies to try to thwart the recall drive’s momentum. In the last one, state Controller Steve Westly and state Treasurer Phil Angelides warned Monday that political instability wrought by the recall effort was hindering state budget talks, damaging California’s credit rating, increasing borrowing costs and deepening the fiscal morass.

Davis was raising the same concerns.

“There’s no question it creates instability,” he said Wednesday in a radio interview on KGO-AM in San Francisco.

The governor called the recall campaign “an effort by the right wing to overthrow the results of a legitimate election last November and stick taxpayers with a $35-million or $45-million bill. Would I prefer to avoid the election? Yes. But do I fear it? No.”

In their preliminary research for the campaign, Davis strategists have homed in on the cost of a special fall election as a key line of attack. With the state facing billions of dollars in cutbacks, they expect the costs of a recall election will continue to annoy voters even after the actual date is set and irrevocable.

“If the recall does occur, the taxpayers have to come up with that money,” Davis said in the radio interview. “It will come out of the same general fund that pays for teachers, police officers and health care.”

A Los Angeles Times poll last week found that 51% of California voters supported the ouster of Davis in a recall election, but when told of the potential cost, enough changed their minds to keep Davis in office.

The cost is one of perhaps seven or eight key messages that the Davis team expects to resonate with voters. But as his campaign against the recall takes shape, he and his advisors are trying to narrow them down.

“Based on the concerns that voters have, there’s a ton of ways for us to go after it,” said David Doak, the governor’s chief media consultant.

Among the possibilities for raising doubts among voters: Because of the way recall elections are held in California, a relatively small slice of the electorate could pick Davis’ replacement. On the two-part ballot would be a yes-or-no vote on recalling Davis, followed by a potentially long list of candidates to replace him. The one with the most votes would win if Davis were ousted.

Davis also could frame the recall as part of a national Republican strategy to gain power by bypassing the normal election system.

For months, he has cited the conservative ideology of recall movement leaders -- especially Rep. Issa -- to cast the campaign as a power grab by Republicans who are out of step with California voters. Issa has denied that assertion.