Kaloogian Targets Lockyer Over Gay Marriages

Hoping to spur interest in an otherwise low-profile Senate race, Republican candidate Howard Kaloogian on Tuesday joined with a key figure from last year’s successful effort to recall Gov. Gray Davis to level a similar threat against Atty. Gen. Bill Lockyer.

Kaloogian and Ted Costa, executive director of People’s Advocate, the antitax group that launched the Davis recall, pledged on a Sacramento radio talk show to pursue a recall against Lockyer if he doesn’t act swiftly to halt gay marriages performed since Feb. 12 in San Francisco.

The threat came one day after Lockyer announced that, by week’s end, he will ask the California Supreme Court to decide the legality of same-sex marriage. Last week, Lockyer had dismissed as political hyperbole a letter from Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger demanding that he intervene with the courts to stop the ceremonies.

Kaloogian accused Lockyer of “weeks of inaction” when he should have quickly barred San Francisco County from issuing the licenses as a violation of state law. A similar marriage movement last week in Bernalillo, New Mexico, prompted that state’s attorney general, Patricia Madrid, to immediately order the Sandoval County clerk’s office to stop issuing licenses.

“We’re putting Lockyer on notice that we will recall him if he doesn’t do his job,” Kaloogian said in an interview.

When asked by reporters about the recall threat, Schwarzenegger, attending a reception in New York for travel writers, said Lockyer should be given a chance to “straighten out the mess. I think that we all have to work together on this,” the governor said. “I think that this is what he’s going to do. I’m absolutely convinced, I’m looking at the positive. I have a good working relationship with the attorney general, and in the future, I think it’s important for us to work together.”

During the recall, Kaloogian and Costa led separate, sometimes competing, recall organizations, although Costa filed the first recall notice. U.S. Rep. Darrell Issa, who financed a third recall organization, is generally credited with pulling the effort over the finish line. He has endorsed another Senate candidate, Bill Jones.

It was unclear Tuesday whether the conservative outcry over San Francisco’s 3,000-plus gay marriages would refocus political attention on the Senate race, even as President Bush announced his support for a constitutional amendment reaffirming marriage as between a man and a woman. Bush cited the events in San Francisco and court rulings backing the legality of gay marriage in Vermont and Massachusetts. There are 10 Republican candidates hoping to face Democratic incumbent U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer in the fall.

Boxer issued a statement Tuesday condemning the proposed constitutional amendment as unnecessary and contrary to the ability of states to govern marriage.

“I believe this is an election-year wedge issue to divert attention from this administration’s abysmal record on jobs, healthcare, education and the environment,” she said.

Last week, Boxer joined U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein in supporting California law, which since 2000 has defined marriage as between a man and woman. Boxer’s comments prompted another Republican Senate candidate, former U.S. Treasurer Rosario Marin, to say it was issued only after she challenged Boxer’s silence on the issue.

The other major candidates in the race, former Secretary of State Jones and former Los Altos Hills Mayor Toni Casey, also have condemned San Francisco’s issuance of marriage licenses to same-sex couples and called on Mayor Gavin Newsom to discontinue the practice.

In a debate Tuesday on San Diego radio station KOGO-AM (600), Kaloogian and Marin said they supported Bush’s call for an amendment to the Constitution recognizing only heterosexual marriages. Jones and Casey said they would be willing to consider such a step if the matter wasn’t resolved by the courts, which prompted Kaloogian to chide them, saying they were ducking the question.

The candidates sparred over other issues, including Jones’ support for tax hikes in 1991 when he was in the Assembly -- increases, he said, which were crucial to solving a budget deficit that was much like the state’s current fiscal crisis. When an Orange County caller chided Casey for being a former Democrat and donating to Democratic candidates, she countered with a list of GOP candidates for whom she had raised funds, including Bush. “I will attract independent votes,” she said.

Kaloogian, meanwhile, on Tuesday became the first Senate candidate to launch television ads in the race, touting himself as the conservative choice for GOP primary voters.

His 30-second ad, aimed at viewers of cable television’s Fox News Network, highlighted his endorsements by state Sen. Tom McClintock, commentator Bruce Herschensohn, former U.S. Rep. Jack Kemp and James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family. A series of Kaloogian radio ads featuring McClintock’s endorsement will begin today, his campaign said.

“Obviously, this is not going to be an air war,” Kaloogian strategist Sal Russo said. “It’s being waged in the trenches of the volunteers. But we’ll have a presence that Republican voters will have a chance to see and hear.”

Marin began radio commercials for her campaign two weeks ago in key markets, but none of the other major candidates has taken to television.

Jones campaign spokeswoman Valerie Walston said he planned no radio or television ads before the primary. The campaign already communicated to voters, she said, through a heavily distributed mail brochure featuring Schwarzenegger’s endorsement of Jones, whose campaign nonetheless has struggled with fundraising.

Jones last week reported receiving $311,000 in contributions so far this year, with campaign debts of $568,000.

The four major candidates will be in Los Angeles today to tape a half-hour debate on KCET television, scheduled to air Thursday at 10 p.m.