Pacific Lumber Aids Effort to Recall D.A.
After an upstart district attorney charged Pacific Lumber Co. with fraud early this year, the Northern California timber giant was not content to just fight it out in the courts.
When a local campaign to recall Humboldt County Dist. Atty. Paul V. Gallegos began to flag last month, Scotia-based Pacific Lumber came to the rescue, providing an infusion of cash, sending out thousands of pro-recall mailers, granting employees paid leave to work on the campaign and paying professional circulators as much as $8 for every signature they could add to the recall petition.
At that point, the campaign organizers had less than a month to garner enough signatures to make the recall effort qualify for the March 2004 ballot.
It appears the company's efforts have paid off. On Thursday, the county elections office ruled that, by a narrow margin, enough signatures had been gathered to force a March recall vote.
Pacific Lumber spokesman Jim Branham estimated the company had spent $40,000 in the closing days of the recall campaign. "The recall campaign had hit a wall," he said. "The organizers had asked for our help. We felt a last push was needed."
Pacific Lumber's involvement in the recall appears to fall outside the scope of any state law, including those administered by the Fair Political Practices Commission, the state agency that regulates campaign finance.
"I've never heard of a situation like this before, where a defendant uses an election to go after the person bringing the lawsuit," said Bob Stern, former general counsel of the commission and now president of the Los Angeles-based Center for Governmental Studies. "But there is clearly no prohibition. In a state that elects D.A.'s and judges, it would be very difficult, and probably unconstitutional, to regulate this."
The lawsuit filed by Gallegos last spring contends that Pacific Lumber deceived state agencies about its timber-cutting plans, resulting in massive landslide and flooding damage to local streams and farms. The company is accused of sidestepping environmental restrictions established under the historic 1999 Headwaters agreement, which set aside 7,500 acres of ancient redwoods in a public trust.
Pacific Lumber spokesman Branham calls the suit's allegations "bogus."
Company lawyers argue that the case has no merit and have sought its dismissal.
