Perata pulls plug on Denham recall

Senate leader Don Perata announced late Wednesday that he was dropping the recall campaign of Sen. Jeff Denham, due to his "best judgment about how to stop the long, slow slide into another long stalemate" on the budget.

Perata had initiated the recall last summer, after Denham, R-Atwater, sided with the majority of Senate Republicans in blocking passage of the budget during a 52-day standoff.

A campaign committee linked to Perata, D-Oakland, and the Democratic Party spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on the recall campaign.

At a late afternoon news conference on the steps of the Capitol, Perata said he decided not to pursue the recall after meeting Wednesday with Senate Republican Leader Dave Cogdill.

"I told him I had come to a decision that it would seem to me to be destructive to continue the recall while at the same time he and I were going to sit down with our counterparts in the Assembly and in seven weeks try to put together a budget that may well have to eliminate a $14 billion deficit.," Perata said.

"There was no quid pro quo. I didn't ask for anything. I just told him that I did not believe that this kind of politics, cast against the huge problem that we're having in this state, made a lot of sense."

Perata said he was swayed by a conversation he had with state Treasurer Bill Lockyer "who said that you all don't have a whole lot of time this year (to agree on a budget) because we're going to be broke."

"So in contemplating that -- and remembering the (53-day) stalemate that we had last year -- which simply embittered a lot lof people to no end, to no purpose, I sat down with Dave Cogdill and talked to him about something he had said the first time we met and that was about the recall."

On Tuesday, Cogdill told The Bee that the recall was a "major distraction" and said called the campaign a "blatant attempt at a power grab."

"In the spirit of putting politics aside to solve problems -- I'm ending the recall campaign," Perata said, adding that "there was no deal, no quid pro quo" to abandoning the recall.

Kevin Spillane, a spokesman for Denham, was skeptical of Perata's intentions, saying "The reality is (the recall is) on the ballot and they just upped their media buy to $1.4 million" in recent days.

But, Spillane added, "If he's willing to do the right thing, we welcome it."

In a statement, Perata credited the recall for recent legislation that passed out of the Senate:

"The vote we couldn't get last year to close the tax loophole for yacht owners -- we got that vote," he said. "The vote we couldn't get to help homeowners facing foreclosure - we got that vote. You put everyone here on notice -- and I don't think people are going to forget that anytime soon."

Spillane dismissed that analysis, saying Denham voted for the mortgage foreclosure legislation only after amendments were made at his request.

"Don Perata has never been able to bully Jeff Denham," Spillane said. "That's why his recall effort is failing miserably and he pulled the plug to save campaign dollars."

The recall remains on the June 3 ballot. Former Assemblyman Simon Salinas, D-Salinas, is the only candidate on the ballot to replace Denham.