09:42 AM PST on Thursday, March 18, 2004

By ABE ESTIMADA, kgw.com Staff

Multnomah County organizers of a recall effort to oust county commission chairperson Diane Linn and fellow commissioner Lisa Naito from office say signatures and volunteers are nearly overwhelming their ability to coordinate them all.

Multnomah County commissioners, including Diane Linn, left, and Serena Cruz, at the podium, speak at a news conference in Portland. Standing to the right of Linn are commissioner Maria Rojo de Steffey, county attorney Agnes Sowle, and commissioner Lisa Naito. (AP Photo)

The recall effort picked up even more steam after the Multnomah County Elections Division this week certified the papers necessary for volunteers to begin collecting signatures for petitions.

The Christian Coalition of Oregon, the primary organizers of the recall, had to install a second phone line and ask for more volunteers at their office in Oregon City to handle the heavy call volumes and mail requests, said executive director John Belgarde.

“We’re just getting an over-the-top response on this – big time,” said an exhausted Belgarde, whose cell phone hasn’t really stopped ringing since Multnomah County began issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples in early March. “We’re getting hundreds of requests on it per day.”

The level of anger and frustration against Linn, Naito and commissioners Serena Cruz and Maria Rojo de Steffey is great enough that Belgarde doesn’t believe the recall petitioners will have a problem collecting the signatures necessary to put Linn’s and Naito’s seats up for a vote in the months ahead.

Volunteers must collect 36,786 valid signatures from Multnomah County residents to put the question of recalling Linn on the ballot. They have to get 8,296 signatures from voters living in southeast Portland’s District 3 to place Naito’s seat up for a recall, said Eric Sample, a spokesman for the county elections division.

“There are those of who oppose the homosexual agenda on a moral and historical basis,” Belgarde said. “Anybody who’s watched the fall of civilization knows it starts with the degradation of the family.”

“…Mostly, (people are angry) about the way the (commissioners) did it. If this is such an important issue to you, why didn’t you take it to the voters? Why cause all this grief?”

If the petitioners are successful, the signatures are valid, and Naito and Linn don't resign after the signatures are gathered, the recall vote could happen in mid- to late-July at the latest, Sample said.

The potential cost for Multnomah County for a special, recall election could be about $300,000, Sample said. That was the price tag for the Measure 30 tax vote this winter, but the bill was charged to the state.

Belgarde said chief petitioners are being tapped to sponsor recall elections in Cruz’s and Rojo de Steffey’s districts. He expects to file recall papers very soon for Cruz and Rojo de Steffey.

“Well over” a thousand signatures have been collected to recall Linn since Monday when the green light was given by the elections division to go ahead with signature-gathering, Belgarde said. In some instances, hundreds of signatures are being collected in one day as volunteers scour neighborhoods or man street corners to attract voters’ attentions, he said.

The Christian Coalition and its volunteers have until 5 p.m., June 7 to turn in the signatures. To make sure the signatures are valid, volunteers are paying for experts to scan voter rolls to make sure the signatories live in Multnomah County, and the names aren’t duplicated.

Money is also beginning to trickle in to help bankroll the recall campaign, Belgarde said.

“We’re watching how fast these signatures come in, and we think we’ll have a majority of the signatures within a month,” Belgarde said.

Recall election complications

The coalition and its volunteers have a reason for wanting to collect the signatures as quickly as they can.

Though Linn’s term is up in 2006, Naito is up for re-election this May. If voters in her district, which encompasses much of southeast Portland, carry her to another four-year term, she takes office for the new term in January.

But petitioners have only filed to recall Naito from her current term, Sample said. If Naito is successfully recalled in July and is forced to leave office in August for her current term, she could be back in office in January to serve her next four-year term, Sample said.

Naito’s opponents couldn’t begin a recall effort until she had served six months in office, Sample said.

Belgarde said he was aware of the potential problem the Christian Coalition would face if Naito was re-elected in May. But he said their volunteers are attempting to cause enough problems with a recall that voters in Naito’s district may think twice about electing her to office.

Also, they said they felt that a recall effort would more energize citizens politically than mounting a campaign against Naito during the May 18 primary.

“(The recall) is a mechanism to get out her out of her office,” Belgarde said. “Think of it as a way to replace Lisa Naito and replace her with someone who’s a little more tuned in with the community and the community standards.”

History is also seemingly against the recall petition. Recalls have been started against Portland Mayor Vera Katz and Portland Public Schools school board member Derry Jackson in recent times, but they fizzled.

A recall vote of several members of the Parkrose School District school board took place in September 1998. But the electorate wasn’t swayed and kept the school board members in office, Sample said.