Recall effort mirrors state budget tiff { peRATa attacking Republican over Budget}

San Francisco Chronicle ^ | 4/28/8 | Jeff Denham

[SmithL]

State Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata and the Democratic Party are working overtime to recall a Republican state senator in a costly effort that would replay last summer's raucous state budget battle.

The state party already has spent more than $600,000 to put the recall measure on the June 3 ballot and target Sen. Jeff Denham, a 40-year-old Merced almond grower and businessman who was re-elected to his Central California seat in 2006 with nearly 60 percent of the vote.

But that was before Denham angered Perata, D-Oakland, last year by refusing to become one of the two Republicans the Democratic leader needed to pass the state budget. It wasn't until August, more than seven weeks after the budget deadline, that Senate Minority Leader Dick Ackerman, R-Irvine, broke the deadlock and voted to pass the budget.

Denham, in an interview outside the Merced County government center last week, said the recall drive is little more than an effort by a vindictive Perata to punish him for that budget vote.

"I voted against what I saw as an unbalanced budget that I knew would bring huge financial problems in the future," said Denham, whose sprawling 12th Senate District stretches from Modesto south to Merced and Madera and west to Los Banos, Hollister and Salinas. "Now we have someone from another area of the state coming down here and trying to tell the district how to vote."

[SmithL]

PeRATa Ping!

[NormsRevenge]

This is one of the most bizarre recalls in quite some time, imo.

The head RAT is in need of a good thrashing.. Bring on the perp walk. Russoniello, let’s get the grand jury convened and get this little piggy to the market , 3 years plus “investigating” is long enough already.