Recall is polluting spring air

SACRAMENTO —  This is the time of year when the northern San Joaquin Valley is actually bucolic. Temperatures are bearable. The hills are green and the orchards are in full bloom -- almonds gussied in white, peaches in pink.

Too bad that this spring there’s also a foul odor of Sacramento political pollution.

In a nutshell, the local state senator -- Republican Jeff Denham of Merced -- didn’t vote for the state budget last summer. That contributed to a 52-day stalemate and angered the Senate leader, Democrat Don Perata of Oakland. So Perata now is trying to recall Denham.

Not just a payback, but the political death penalty.

Hiram Johnson would turn over in his coffin. The reform governor, about a century ago, gave Californians the initiative, referendum and recall. All were tools of democracy designed to provide ordinary citizens with the ability to fight Sacramento and special interests. The recall specifically was aimed at defrocking scalawags.

But the concept of direct democracy by aggrieved citizens -- if it ever was practiced -- has deteriorated into an instrument used by special interests to con voters into doing their bidding when elected representatives won’t. The recall has evolved into a bludgeon to bully or bump off an elected official whose public policy actions another politician or faction doesn’t like.

Too bad we can’t recall Hiram Johnson.

Republicans -- ironically, given Denham’s plight -- dusted off the recall and began this era of Capitol craziness 13 years ago when they recalled two GOP Assembly members for siding with Democrat Willie Brown in a speakership fight. They also recklessly attempted to recall a Democratic assemblyman.

Then Republicans had great fun five years ago recalling a Democratic governor. Voters elected an actor who promised to “end the crazy deficit spending.” We booted a governor but didn’t blot out the red ink.

That brings us back to Denham.

“My crime is that I wouldn’t vote for an unbalanced budget,” the senator says.

No other Republican would either, except one: Sen. Abel Maldonado of Santa Maria. At least two GOP votes were needed to attain the necessary two-thirds majority for budget passage. Finally, in the eighth week of gridlock, Senate GOP Leader Dick Ackerman of Irvine provided the second vote.

Meanwhile, Perata was commencing his recall effort, which hardly anyone paid much attention to at first. After all, whoever heard of recalling a legislator simply because he had refused to vote for a budget, or any bill? Strip away a plum assignment -- Denham did get bounced as vice chairman of an important committee -- or consign him to “the doghouse,” a tiny office practically on the roof. But recall? The ultimate weapon? Get serious.

Denham, 40, who owns a 20-acre almond ranch and a small plastics firm, represents a sprawling Senate district -- stretching from Salinas to Modesto -- that is a contorted abomination. It was grossly gerrymandered in 2001 to suit a Democrat who ran for Congress instead. Denham then narrowly won a nasty election in the district that still favors Democrats in voter registration, 46% to 36%.

Perata’s political strategists are spinning that the recall is about much more than Denham’s budget-blocking. (The Senate leader himself has said little publicly.)

Campaign spokesman Paul Hefner contends that “Denham ran as an independent who thought for himself, then voted like a right-winger,” especially when he began positioning himself to run for the 2010 GOP nomination for lieutenant governor.

Hefner ticks off a list of alleged sins: voting against school construction and levee repair bonds, voting against a recent bill helping homeowners facing foreclosure, improperly using political donations and grandiosely refusing legislative pay hikes before quietly accepting them.

Denham answers through spokesman Kevin Spillane: He voted against the school and levee bonds because they cheated his district. He voted for an alternative foreclosure prevention measure. It’s hypocritical for Perata to attack his use of political donations when Perata himself is under state investigation for allegedly living high off political money. And although Denham took some pay hikes after saying he wouldn’t, he took $40,000 less than entitled. (Not a good answer.)

Whatever. These are not grounds for recalling the guy. The time for taking him out would have been when he ran for reelection in 2006 and won by a near-landslide. He’ll be termed out in 2010 anyway.

“If you’ve got a problem, you fix it now,” responds Gary Robbins of Modesto, a regional director for the Democratic Party. “He’s a bait-and-switch senator -- not the same person who was put in office.”

That’s the official rationale.

Besides payback, there’s a practical reason for dumping Denham and replacing him with a Democrat. That would give Perata the 27th Senate vote for a tax increase and budget passage, assuming Republican Maldonado again voted with Democrats -- which I wouldn’t necessarily assume.

Perata then could recess the Senate for the summer and merrily dump the budget mess into the laps of the Assembly and governor -- as Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez (D-Los Angeles) did the Senate last summer.

“They’re doing the recall for the wrong reason,” says one Democratic senator, who -- like some colleagues -- privately opposes the scheme but doesn’t want to complain publicly for fear of angering Perata. “They want the 27th vote for the budget. But that isn’t fixing the budget problem. They should fix the budget.”

“I don’t think it’s fair,” says San Benito County Supervisor Reb Monaco, a Democrat and retired schoolteacher. “I don’t think that the criteria for recall is blocking the budget. Jeff’s always been good to our district.”

Petition circulators got paid roughly $300,000 to collect enough signatures to qualify the recall for the ballot, presumably coinciding with the June 3 state primary, although Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger still hasn’t set the date. No Democrat is yet running, but at least one surely will.

“This is very frustrating because Don and I always had a good relationship,” Denham told me at a Capitol hangout. “We used to sit here and have beer and cigars together.”

Not this spring. It’s not that bucolic in Sacramento.

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george.skelton@latimes.com