SACRAMENTO — Responding to a threatened special election to recall Gov. Gray Davis, key supporters of the governor have launched a committee to try to kill the effort before it qualifies for the ballot.
A top Davis campaign veteran, Steve Smith, is taking a leave of absence from his state job to lead the committee, Taxpayers Against the Recall, according to committee organizers. Smith, a longtime political operative with close ties to organized labor, was deputy to Davis' chief strategist, Garry South, in the 1998 governor's race.
Smith plans to step aside Friday as acting secretary of labor and workforce development, said Davis spokesman Steven Maviglio.
Eric Bauman, director of the governor's state office in Los Angeles, has also taken a leave of absence to fight the recall, sources said. It was not immediately clear whether he would work for the committee.
Formation of the anti-recall committee is the most explicit acknowledgment to date by Davis and his supporters that the ouster effort poses a threat to the Democratic governor, who was reelected in November but suffers from dismal poll ratings.
It comes after recall supporters raised at least $790,000 for their push for a special election. Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Vista), a multimillionaire who has voiced interest in running for governor on the recall ballot, has donated more than half the money. Experts estimate that the petition effort to qualify a recall measure for the ballot would cost at least $2 million.
Although the financial support has blossomed in recent weeks, there is as yet no firm evidence that the recall proponents are making progress among voters.
The California secretary of state's office said Tuesday that recall supporters had submitted only 18,560 signatures as of May 19 -- despite earlier claims by supporters that they would turn in more than 100,000 on May 5.
Recall supporters have not turned in any signatures from some of California's most populous counties, including Los Angeles, Orange, San Bernardino and Riverside, said Terri M. Carbaugh, assistant secretary of state for communications.
The supporters have until Sept. 2 to collect 897,158 valid voter signatures. Political analysts say they will have to collect more than 1.2 million signatures overall to ensure that their target is met. Organizers said Tuesday that they have hundreds of thousands of signatures collected but not yet turned in.
