Court’s About-Face Restarts Campaign’s Final Sprint

Monday

* Federal appeals court judges sharply challenged attorneys seeking to postpone the Oct. 7 recall election, posing questions that were notably unsympathetic in tone during an hourlong, nationally televised hearing. Legal scholars and lawyers close to both sides of the case said after the hearing that the judges had appeared to lean toward the argument, made by lawyers for Secretary of State Kevin Shelley, that postponing the election would be unfair to voters.

* A judge ruled that Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante had broken campaign laws by using about $4 million in six- and seven-figure donations to pay for an advertising blitz. The judge ordered Bustamante to return the contributions. Bustamante’s chief political consultant said that all the money was gone. In a 12-page order issued in response to a lawsuit by a Republican state senator, Sacramento Superior Court Judge Loren McMaster wrote that a fund-raising maneuver Bustamante had employed had violated the “plain and unambiguous language” of Proposition 34. That measure, passed by voters in 2000, caps political contributions at $21,200 in the recall race. The lieutenant governor accepted donations far exceeding that sum -- including a $1.5-million gift from an Indian tribe -- in an old campaign fund established before Proposition 34 took effect. Then he shifted the money to a new fund and used it for an ad campaign. McMaster issued a preliminary injunction forbidding Bustamante to transfer any more of the disputed money to his current campaign. But the judge also said that Bustamante had probably “acted in good faith” and had not intentionally broken the law.

* Arnold Schwarzenegger began airing a statewide television ad that accused his rivals of taking millions of dollars in donations from “Indian casino tribes” -- an apparent departure from his pledges to forgo attacks on other candidates. Schwarzenegger also started running a spot that called Gov. Gray Davis incompetent, blames him for high energy prices and hammered him for letting illegal immigrants get driver’s licenses. It accused Davis of fiscal mismanagement and criticized him for tripling the state car tax. Schwarzenegger spokesman Sean Walsh denied that the candidate was going back on a promise. “This is not negative campaigning. This is simply stating the facts,” he said.

Tuesday

* The federal appeals court put the California recall race back on track for an Oct. 7 election, reversing an order to postpone the vote and setting off a 13-day sprint to a final public judgment on Gov. Gray Davis. Lawyers for the American Civil Liberties Union who had challenged the date said they would not pursue the matter further. Legal experts had projected slim odds for success, if the ACLU appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. The definitive election date came as a relief to the Democratic governor and the three leading contenders for his job. Each had hoped -- and assumed -- that the vote would occur Oct. 7 as planned. In their unanimous ruling, an 11-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals stated “there is no doubt that the right to vote is fundamental, but a federal court cannot lightly interfere” with a state election.

* The recall race took a distinctly negative turn with a spate of new television ads. A day after Arnold Schwarzenegger started running a spot accusing rivals of trading state favors for donations from Indian tribes, Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante began airing one of his own, saying that the actor “doesn’t share our values” and “lives on Planet Hollywood.” In an interview on CNN, Bustamante called Schwarzenegger a “hypocrite” for accepting $62,000 in Indian donations last year for a ballot measure he was supporting. “Arnold is pretty phony on this whole issue,” Bustamante said. Rob Stutzman, a spokesman for Schwarzenegger, said the situations were different because a governor can negotiate casino pacts with tribes.

* Anxiety appeared to rise among Republicans over the party’s failure to unite behind one candidate in the race to replace Davis if he is recalled. Polls have found Republican voters split between Schwarzenegger and state Sen. Tom McClintock (R-Thousand Oaks), with Bustamante, the only prominent Democrat in the race, holding a narrow lead over the action-film star. “Somebody needs to recognize that the election of Cruz Bustamante is a real possibility if these two Republicans continue to divide the vote,” said state Senate Republican Leader Jim Brulte of Rancho Cucamonga, California’s top GOP officeholder.

* Schwarzenegger gave more details on his plan for closing the state’s budget gap. He said that, as governor, he would raise money by offering a tax amnesty and cracking down on waste in the Medi-Cal system, the state’s insurance program for the poor and disabled. Schwarzenegger also said he would press the federal government for more funding, contending that for every federal tax dollar Californians pay, they get back just 77 cents in services.

Wednesday

* The leading contenders to replace Gov. Gray Davis tossed barbs in a raucous debate. For all their substantive differences, the most heat was shed when the hopefuls, seated together and questioned in round-robin fashion, unleashed a series of personal put-downs. The two main antagonists, Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger and independent Arianna Huffington, bickered throughout the evening. At one point, when Schwarzenegger interrupted her, Huffington turned and said, “This is the way you treat women, we know that.” The remark was an evident reference to allegations that the film star has treated women disrespectfully. “I just realized that I have a perfect part for you in ‘Terminator 4,’ ” Schwarzenegger shot back, which Huffington later said referred to a scene in one of his films in which his character thrusts the head of a female robot into a toilet. The 90-minute forum on the campus of Cal State Sacramento may be the only session Schwarzenegger attends. After passing up several earlier joint appearances, he told reporters Wednesday night he was finished debating.

* Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante staked out largely liberal positions on taxes, immigration and government regulation. The Green Party’s Peter Camejo called for higher taxes on the state’s wealthiest residents to help solve the state’s budget problems. Schwarzenegger, a centrist on social issues, touted his fiscal conservatism by accusing Sacramento of overtaxing Californians and over-regulating state businesses. State Sen. Tom McClintock (R-Thousand Oaks) staked out the most conservative positions by echoing Schwarzenegger’s economic prescriptions, offering far more detail than the others on specific budget cuts he would make. He further noted his opposition to legalized abortion and gun control.

* As the candidates who would like to replace Davis attacked one another during their televised debate, aides to the unpopular governor said they increasingly felt that they were within striking distance of saving his job. With several nonpartisan polls showing the race tightening, his strategists believed that they could win if they changed the minds of about 3% of the electorate -- mostly independents and some Democrats who had been leaning toward recalling Davis. To accomplish that, Davis’ aides said, they did not plan any major surprises. Rather, their plan called for the governor to continue meeting angry voters face to face in town hall meetings around the state. At the same time, he would be waging a television advertising campaign designed to sow doubts about the recall in the minds of voters.

Thursday

* Arnold Schwarzenegger sought to project an image of Republican solidarity behind his candidacy, announcing endorsements by Bill Simon Jr., the party’s 2002 nominee for governor, and by a group of county GOP chairmen. But state Sen. Tom McClintock (R-Thousand Oaks) refused to bow to pressure from the actor’s campaign to drop out of the race. With 12 days left until the election, tensions mounted between the two GOP candidates after Schwarzenegger began airing a new television ad. It showed McClintock’s face popping up in a slot machine as the actor questioned the propriety of the senator’s campaign donations from Indian tribes.

* Gov. Gray Davis, who described the Wednesday debate as more of a “food fight” than a substantive forum, went on the attack against Schwarzenegger in harsher terms than before. He said Schwarzenegger -- who called California’s business climate under Davis the worst in the nation -- had painted an overly bleak picture of the state. “I’m upset at Mr. Schwarzenegger for trying to put this great state down,” Davis said after speaking to members of the Los Angeles County Professional Peace Officers Assn. in Monterey Park. “He is constantly mischaracterizing the facts about California. I’m going to set the record straight. I’m getting sick and tired of Mr. Schwarzenegger, and if he doesn’t set the record straight himself, I may just have to debate him. You would think someone who can memorize his lines can memorize the facts.”

* Campaign spending reached $50 million, according to campaign reports filed with the state. Schwarzenegger had raised $13.6 million and spent $13.4 million, mostly on high-priced television spots. He had spent $5.4 million on production and air time and $1.4 million on printed ads in the last four weeks, the period covered by the reports. Schwarzenegger had used $6.5 million of his own money and raised the rest largely from real estate and high-tech interests, and from entertainment figures. He also had received hundreds of small donations.

Democratic Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante had raised $9.4 million, more than a third of it from Indian tribes that own Southern California casinos. He has received $1.8 million from organized labor. Tribes and unions also had spent $3 million more in independent campaign efforts on Bustamante’s behalf. Bustamante reported having spent $4.5 million during the last month on television ads denouncing Proposition 54 on the Oct. 7 ballot. Bustamante also had paid $170,000 to the United Farm Workers. The funds were earmarked for a get-out-the-vote effort. Davis reported having raised $9 million this year. Organized labor accounted for $2.4 million, or 27%, of the money he had raised this year -- by far the largest portion of his cash.

Davis had spent $5.4 million on television air time during the most recent four-week period, and had $1.4 million in the bank as of Saturday. McClintock had raised $1.6 million since jumping into the race. The vast majority of his donations had come in small checks. In the four-week period ending Saturday, McClintock had reported 3,330 donations of $20 to $100, plus $200,000 in even smaller donations

Friday

* Gov. Gray Davis started running his first spot against Arnold Schwarzenegger. “Why can’t Arnold Schwarzenegger get his facts straight?” the narrator asked. “He has no experience, won’t answer press questions, won’t debate unless he has the questions in advance and didn’t even bother to vote in 13 of the last 21 elections.” Davis repeated his call for a debate with Schwarzenegger.

* At a rally in Santa Monica, Schwarzenegger and his advisors sought to cast the final stage of the race as a contest between the actor and the governor. “The people have suffered enough under the hands of Gray Davis,” Schwarzenegger said. Schwarzenegger’s strategist, Mike Murphy, suggested that the actor had little to gain by engaging his rivals in the race to become Davis’ successor. “Our question now is, do we want to spend our time arguing with Cruz Bustamante, or Arianna Huffington, or the Green candidate, when the real question doesn’t involve any of that,” Murphy said. “It’s whether you want Schwarzenegger or whether you want Davis. That’s the question.” Schwarzenegger picked up the endorsement of Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Vista).

* State Sen. Tom McClintock (R-Thousand Oaks) went to Colorado to raise money from conservative activists. He vowed to stay in the race until the end. He took Schwarzenegger to task for taking advice from Democrats, including investor Warren Buffett and environmentalist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. “It’s not my idea of conservative governance,” McClintock said at a brief appearance in Sacramento

* Bustamante faced a growing perception that his campaign had stalled, according to fellow Democrats and independent analysts. Bustamante “has to be much more public and ... build some momentum for his candidacy,” said Democratic consultant Gale Kaufman. “He did that on the front end, but now he’s been more quiet.”