California Insider

Davis Recall proponent Darrell Issa is putting another $350,000 or so into the campaign, bringing the San Diego County congressman’s total contributions to date to about a half-million dollars, confirms David Gilliard, his campaign consultant. Gilliard says the cash infusion will pay for the mailing of 1 million pieces this weekend that will include recall petitions and a postage-paid envelope for returning the signed documents to the campaign. The mailings are going to households with at least two registered Republicans. Gilliard says he is hoping for a return rate of somewhere between 5 percent and 8 percent, with an average of more than 2 signatures per petition. There’s no way to independently confirm any of this, but I have dealt with Gilliard for many years and I have never known him to lie to me. I have no reason to suspect he is doing so now. That’s why I can only conclude that Issa is in this thing for real now, and if that’s the case, the recall is going to qualify. Brace yourselves. This one is not going to be for the weak of heart.

The hottest recall rumor of the moment is that California’s well-heeled Indian tribes are queuing up to contribute to the campaign to remove Gray Davis. That would guarantee it qualifies for the ballot and probably doom Davis to boot. My sources say it hasn’t happened yet. But it might. Recall consultant David Gilliard says his group has had discussions with at least some of the tribes but has yet to receive any money from any of the Indians. The mostly Northern California tribes represented by lawyer Howard Dickstein won’t be contributing. Dickstein told me the tribes he represents have done better under Davis than all the previous governors combined and they are not interested in toppling the governor. But others say another group of tribes based in Southern California is considering it. So far they haven’t returned my calls. A longtime Sacramento player with close ties to the Indians says he thinks they’ll join in if the recall organizers can first raise a campaign chest in the neighborhood of $1 million to prove they’re serious. Davis is hitting up the tribes for $680 million a year for the state treasury from their gambling operations. By spending a couple million to qualify the recall and perhaps $20 million on the candidate of their choice, they might be able to get out from under that obligation forever. Or perhaps just whispering about the prospect of joining the recall will be enough to persuade Davis to back away from his proposal to tax the tribes' gaming proceeds

Some have suggested that state deficit hawks, myself included, are purists who pay more attention to accounting principles than to the needs of California residents. Isn’t it better, this line of reasoning goes, to provide health, education and other services to those who need them, and pay for them later, rather than cutting them now or raising taxes to pay for them, simply for the sake of a balanced budget? Today’s LA Times helps answer that question with a story placing the cost for the state’s latest round of borrowing at $272 million. That’s the interest and fees on the $11 billion the state needs to carry it through the summer. Enough, according to The Times, to build 35 schools or pay 5,000 teachers for a year. Here’s the fun part: about $100 million of that will go to Wall Street firms simply to vouch for the state’s credit, because without such insurance, nobody would buy our bonds. Wonderful. Here’s the link. Registration required. Use CaliforniaInsider as your sign-on and password insider.