2 Democrats in Congress Urge Feinstein to Enter Recall Race

Two Democratic members of Congress publicly urged Sen. Dianne Feinstein on Tuesday to join the race to replace Gov. Gray Davis, ending what had been a united effort by Democratic elected officials to stand with the governor in the recall election.

The statements came from U.S. Reps. Loretta Sanchez (D-Garden Grove) and Cal Dooley (D-Hanford).

Both said that, although they oppose the recall, Democrats need someone to vote for in case Davis loses.

On the Republican side of the campaign, former Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan continued trying to build a campaign team. Sources familiar with Riordan’s thinking said he had largely decided to run.

“Dick is running,” said one Riordan confidant. “They are trying to assemble a team and think about who would work best with Dick.”

The confidant said he expected Noelia Rodriguez, one of Riordan’s top aides when he was mayor, to run the campaign, even though her experience with campaigns is limited.

“I don’t care how many experts you have around Dick Riordan,” the confidant added.

“It won’t work unless you make the man comfortable.”

Rodriguez is said to be extremely loyal to Riordan, who has counted on her advice on several occasions since she went to Washington, where she serves as press secretary for First Lady Laura Bush.

Rodriguez’s role in advising Riordan would appear to contradict an effort by White House officials to maintain distance from the recall. There were indications Tuesday that White House officials were concerned about that.

Rodriguez “was told, ‘Don’t get us drawn into this; we are trying to stay out of this,’ ” said a Republican familiar with White House thinking.

The Republican added that Rodriguez’s involvement in Riordan’s nascent campaign did not reflect White House policy and that the Bush administration remains determined to stay out of the recall maneuvering.

“She has a long-standing relationship” with Riordan, the senior Republican said.

As the field continued to take shape, another Republican hopeful, Bill Simon Jr., who defeated Riordan in the Republican primary last year and then lost to Davis, took out his papers to file for the Oct. 7 recall ballot.

“It’s an important day, and it’s an important step on the road to candidacy,” Simon said.

“Clearly Californians are missing leadership, and clearly they want new leadership.”

The recall election offers voters two questions: whether Davis should keep his office, and who should replace him; he is not allowed to be among those candidates.

Public polls consistently have shown Feinstein would be the most popular candidate to replace Davis if she were to run. So far she has said she has no plans to do so.

“It is no secret that Gov. Davis is in trouble, and I seriously doubt that he can survive the recall effort,” Dooley said in a statement. “We, as Democrats, need to get behind a strong candidate.

“It is unfortunate that the recall effort qualified for the ballot,” he added, but “it is foolhardy for Democrats to gamble that Gov. Davis can pull this out.”

Sanchez, who was in San Francisco to take part in a meeting of Democratic strategists presided over by San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown, said she spoke Tuesday with Feinstein and that the senator was “not inclined at this point to put her name in, though that doesn’t mean she won’t.”

Sanchez said she “went through my list of reasons, that voters need a choice, and that choice would be to vote no on the recall and then vote for [Feinstein] as Plan B” in case the recall is successful.

“I said a month ago that I believed Democrats needed to have a choice” in the race if the recall got on the ballot, she said.

If Feinstein were to run, “she may actually get more votes for Gray to beat the recall because she’d get more Democrats out to vote,” Sanchez said. “They’d be less inclined to show up if no Democrat were on the ballot.”

Strategists for Davis have been striving to hold Democrats together, fearing that the presence of a prominent Democrat on the ballot would undermine Davis’ attempt to portray the recall as an attempt by conservative Republicans to take over the state.

Democratic strategists are planning to bring a number of prominent national Democratic figures to the state to campaign on behalf of Davis.

New York Sen. Hilary Rodham Clinton, for example, plans to visit the state next week and is expected to voice her support for the governor.

“Democrats across California are as united as they can be in opposition to this right-wing recall effort,” said Peter Ragone, spokesman for Davis’ campaign committee, Californians Against the Costly Recall.

As Democratic strategists met in San Francisco, the state Republican Party chairman, Duf Sundheim, convened a meeting with emissaries from several potential GOP candidates.

The meeting at the Westwood office of Gerald Parsky, President Bush’s top California political operative, was aimed at ensuring that the party and its candidates “maximize the opportunity to recall the governor” by avoiding any duplication of efforts, said state GOP spokesman Rob Stutzman.

Notably absent from the meeting was anyone representing Riordan, who has not yet put together a campaign organization.

In another recall-related matter, a federal judge Tuesday struck down a portion of the recall law.

The provision in question said that those who abstained on the recall question could not vote on candidates to replace Davis.

The judge said election officials must count all ballots. The ruling is not expected to have a major effect on the outcome.

“What is at stake is the right of a voter to decide who shall succeed the governor, if recalled,” U.S. District Court Judge Barry Ted Moskowitz said in his ruling.

“Every voter, whether they voted for or against the recall, has a paramount interest in choosing the person who will govern them,” Moskowitz wrote.

The California Secretary of State’s office said officials would not appeal the ruling.

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Times staff writers Ronald Brownstein, Michael Finnegan, Hilda Munoz and Jean Pasco contributed to this report.