06:28 PM PDT on Monday, June 7, 2004

By ABE ESTIMADA, kgw.com Staff

Same-sex marriage opponents did not gather enough signatures by a Monday deadline to put two Multnomah County commissioners up for a recall vote.

John Belgarde, executive director of the Christian Coalition, talks about the recall effort against Multnomah County commissioners Diane Linn and Lisa Naito. (KGW Photo)

County commissioner chairperson Diane Linn and commissioner Lisa Naito will not face a recall this summer after the Christian Coalition of Oregon-led effort failed to garner the necessary signatures to prompt the vote.

Opponents are angry that Linn, Naito and commissioners Serena Cruz and Maria Rojo de Steffey secretly discussed then allowed the county to sell marriage licenses to same-sex couples. The commissioners said they were upholding the Oregon Constitution in making their decision.

The group needed 36,786 signatures to force a recall vote of Linn and another 8,296 signatures for Naito, said Eric Sample, a spokesman for the Multnomah County elections division.

Gay marriage opponents blamed Oregon Secretary of State Bill Bradbury for derailing their efforts. They collected about 35,000 signatures.

“During the last week of the campaign, we kind of had to throw all of our strategies out the door,” said John Belgarde, executive director of the Christian Coalition that led the recall efforts, on Monday.

“We had to take some of our volunteers off the signature gathering process, go through all the petitions, get the ones that no longer qualified under the new rules that Bradbury passed down, and then try to get those all resigned.”

But John Lindback, the state elections director, said the rule has been in effect since 2002.

"It seemed to come as surprise to them," Lindback said.

The rule requires petition gatherers to date the petitions after they sign them as witnesses to the signatures they have collected.

"When we first adopted the rule in 2002 it seemed fairly simple and not onerous -- you not only sign it but date it," Lindback said.

Diane Linn, Multnomah County commissioner. (KGW Photo)

Linn and Naito said it’s time for the county to move on.

"It would have been costly and time-consuming," Linn said of a recall vote, estimating it would have cost taxpayers at least $300,000.

"We can now get on with the important issues of the day -- funding for schools, library service and cuts to our most vulnerable citizens," Linn said.

Multnomah County Commissioner Lisa Naito. (KGW Photo)

Naito said the recall backers are a “single issue group that’s really been attacking us, and now they’ve fallen short, so we have to move on to our work,” she said. Naito is facing a general election runoff this fall against opponent Bill McCarty.

But same-sex marriage opponents vow they won’t give up their fight to oust at least some of the commissioners from office. The Christian Coalition said it will focus its recall efforts on Linn and Cruz.

Same-sex marriage opponents have until July 20 to get 9,139 signatures to put Cruz up for a vote. Linn and Cruz are both are in the second year of their terms; their terms expire in 2006.

To recall Linn, opponents will have to start over again. They have 90 days to collect signatures after they’re given the green light to go, Sample said.

Commissioner de Steffey would only be recalled until she begins a new term of office in January, said John Kauffman, county elections director. The same holds true for Naito, assuming she wins her runoff race in November. Signatures can be collected six months after they take office, Sample said.

The county stopped issuing the licenses while the question of the state's marriage law, which the state attorney general said is a union between a man and a woman, is a violation of the Oregon Constitution is resolved by the Oregon Supreme Court.

(KGW reporter Kelly Love and the Associated Press contributed to this report.)