A Republican Gray Area
California’s House Republican Delegation Is Divided on Davis Recall
Roll Call Staff
While Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) maneuvers to become the next governor of California, his 19 Republican House colleagues from the Golden State have been strangely silent on the political revolution that Issa is helping to foment back home.
“I think the people of California will have to make that decision,” said Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-Calif.).
The movement to recall California Gov. Gray Davis (D), which Issa resuscitated several weeks ago with a huge infusion of cash, appears to be marching its way to the statewide ballot — either this November or in March 2004.
Organizers believe they will be able to collect the 900,000 signatures of registered voters necessary to get the measure on the ballot. If Californians are given the opportunity to decide whether Davis should stay or go, they will also be choosing from among a potentially unlimited number of candidates whom the next governor will be if Davis is recalled.
Issa is the only major-party candidate so far to have formally entered the race, though Peter Camejo, a financial investment adviser who took 5 percent of the vote as the Green Party nominee for governor in 2002, has said he will also run.
While Issa travels the state, simultaneously promoting the recall and himself and talking to influential Californians who can aid both causes, he has yet to turn to his Capitol Hill colleagues for help.
Dave Gilliard, a Golden State GOP consultant who has taken the helm of Rescue California, an Issa-funded group that is collecting signatures to get the recall on the ballot, said the organization has not reached out to the Congressional delegation yet. He said recall supporters believe Republican state legislators, who work more closely with Davis and must wrestle with the $38 billion state deficit that they blame on the governor, are better able to articulate the case for a recall.
That suits several Republican Members of the California Congressional delegation just fine. Asked by Roll Call for their opinion of the recall, four Republican Members of the delegation refused through spokesmen to respond at all.
A few Republicans, despite their antipathy toward Davis, said they believe the recall is ill-advised.
Rep. Mary Bono (R-Calif.) called the recall effort “down and dirty politics,” lacking “positive vision.” While she conceded that she “might rethink” her position on the recall if the tone of the debate becomes less negative, Bono also expressed skepticism that a Republican governor could work with “a hostile [Democratic] legislature.”
Rep. Duke Cunningham (R-Calif.) said he opposes putting the recall on the statewide ballot, and believes GOP activists would be far better served working to elect more Republican state legislators and Members of Congress.
“We must work with the governor today to get ourselves out of this [fiscal] hole,” he said. “It doesn’t make somebody willing to work with you if you’re trying to take out his hide.”
But Cunningham, whose district abuts Issa’s, said he would vote to recall Davis if the measure makes it to the statewide ballot.
Rep. George Radanovich (R-Calif.) said that for practical political reasons he’s “not a big supporter” of the recall. He reasoned that if Republicans wait until the regular 2006 gubernatorial election, a GOP candidate will have a better chance of winning. A recall, he said, would dramatically “complicate California politics.”
Rep. Gary Miller (R-Calif.) said that while Davis is “not good for the state of California,” removing him from office and letting a new governor grapple with the fiscal crisis is tantamount to letting a criminal off the hook.
“I hate to bail him out. ... He doesn’t have to deal with the problem he’s created if he’s recalled,” Miller said. “In one vein, you hate to let him off the hook. If a person commits murder, you want to hold him accountable.”
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