SAN FRANCISCO -- Predicting "government by marginal and extreme political forces" if the election to recall him goes forward as planned, Gov. Gray Davis on Monday added his own lawsuit to the stacks awaiting court action.

The California Supreme Court, which already has begun weighing four other recall-related cases, set a Thursday deadline for a preliminary round of written arguments on Davis' suit.

The governor also asked the same court to rule that he can run as a candidate to succeed himself if he is recalled -- a possibility that Rescue California, the recall committee, said "would only give Gray Davis the opportunity to lose twice in the same election."
But legal handicappers said Davis' suit, which warns of Florida-style chaos, must be taken seriously.

They also said the arguments appeared to be strong against two of the suits filed earlier, both seeking to designate the lieutenant governor as the only possible successor to a recalled governor. Attorney General Bill Lockyer filed legal opposition Monday.

Davis in his suit asked the justices to postpone the balloting by five months -- until March -- to avoid a slapdash polling process that lawyer Robin Johansen said would "make Florida look like a cakewalk."

The suit says the scheduled Oct. 7 recall vote means there will be insufficient voting places and trained poll workers, as well as breakneck deadlines to print and process both sample and actual ballots in up to seven languages.

The suit predicts the biggest potential problems in six counties, including Sacramento and Los Angeles, that plan to use decertified punch card voting machines because replacements won't be ready in October.

"This isn't just something that's being made up," said Daniel Lowenstein, a UCLA elections law specialist.

"There are circumstances when it doesn't matter what the law says. You just can't have an election," he said, giving as an example a New York primary election that had been slated for Sept. 11, 2001. He questioned, though, whether the justices would have time to size up the "fact-intensive" situation in California.

Vikram Amar, a law professor at Hastings College of the Law, agreed, calling Davis' request to postpone the balloting "legally plausible but factually intricate."

Sacramento's machines were decertified after Florida's punch card machines cast the 2000 presidential election into confusion. Under a court settlement, they must be replaced before the March 2004 primary election.

In Bush vs. Gore, the U.S. Supreme Court called off a recount of Florida's presidential vote, saying inconsistencies in the counting of hanging chads on punch card ballots violated the 14th Amendment's anti-discrimination provisions.

Davis' suit argues the decision "precisely applies" to the California recall election.

Sacramento County officials are set to ask the Board of Supervisors today to bring the county's PollStar punch-card system out of retirement for the recall election. The board earlier approved replacing it with an interim ink-card system for the 2004 elections.

County voter registrar Jill LaVine expressed strong support Monday for PollStar.

"It's the system that the staff is most familiar with and that voters are most familiar with," she said.

Meanwhile, the county has been scrambling to find polling sites on short notice.

Davis' second request -- that he be allowed to run as his own successor -- was given less credence by the law professors.

Amar said Davis' attempt to get on the ballot as a successor had the same defect as the suits that would make Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante the only person who could succeed the governor.

Amar said the state Supreme Court had dubious power to take up the issue of Davis' successor in any of the cases unless asked to by the Commission on the Governorship. Under state law, only that commission can ask a court to decide legal questions concerning a vacancy in the office of governor.

But Senate President Pro Tem John Burton, who chairs the commission, said he's been advised by counsel that a recall wasn't the kind of vacancy upon which the commission could act.

In the papers he filed Monday, Lockyer agreed that the parties who've asked the justices to rule in favor of Bustamante had no legal standing.

Even if they did, he argued, the relevant constitutional provisions favor the wide-open balloting on a successor that's currently planned and do not favor Bustamante.

Meanwhile, recall proponents weighed in at the California Supreme Court for the first time late Monday.

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Pending recall lawsuits in state Supreme Court:
Davis v. Shelley: Seeks to delay the recall election until March and include Gov. Gray Davis' name on the ballot among the replacement candidates.
Frankel v. Shelley: Wants Secretary of State Kevin Shelley to remove replacement candidates from the recall ballot and Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante to become governor if Davis is recalled.

Byrnes v. Bustamante: Similar to Frankel lawsuit, wants Bustamante to throw out the second part of the recall ballot and Bustamante to become governor if Davis is recalled.

Eisenberg v. Shelley: Wants Proposition 53, on infrastructure funding, and Proposition 54, which prohibits state government from collecting racial data, removed from the October ballot and be decided in the March primary election.

Burton v. Shelley: Wants to make it tougher for candidates to get on replacement ballot; alleges the traditional requirement set by Shelley – a $3,500 fee and 65 signatures – does not apply to recall ballots.

Lawsuits pending in federal court:
Salazar v. Monterey County: Wants Proposition 54 moved from the October ballot to the March ballot.
Partnoy v. Shelley: Wants a federal court in San Diego to stay its week-old decision to strike down part of the recall law while state courts rule on the same issue: Who qualifies to succeed Davis?