Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

California's politicians and pundits are totally consumed by the historic recall election that's looming just five weeks hence -- with good reason. But the Legislature will be in session for nine more days, and it's becoming evident that those final days will be among the most hectic ever recorded.

While the end of every legislative year is a maelstrom, this year's version is being overlaid by the prospect that voters will dump Gov. Gray Davis from office less than a year after he was re-elected and the absolute uncertainty over who, were that to happen, would be elected as his successor.

Labor unions, gay-rights activists, environmentalists, consumer advocates and other liberal groups know that they have Davis over a political barrel. He desperately needs their wholehearted support, and their money, if he is to have a chance of surviving the recall, and he is virtually begging them for opportunities to sign their priority bills. At the same time, liberals don't know whether, if Davis is a goner, he'll he replaced by Democratic Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante or a Republican such as movie star Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Both of those conditions give liberals great motivation to push their agendas -- from universal health care to driver's licenses for illegal immigrants -- as vigorously as they possibly can in the final days of the session, and that, in turn, leaves opponents of the bills reeling from the cumulative impact of what's happening.

Last week, business leaders told Davis in a letter that if pending "job killer" bills are enacted and soaring workers' compensation costs are not contained, the state's sluggish economy would shed more jobs, especially high-paying manufacturing jobs.

They singled out three measures being pushed by unions and other liberal groups: one that would impose health care insurance mandates on employers, another that would give Indian tribes more power to block development on lands they consider sacred, and a third (actually a two-bill package) that would make it easier for personal injury attorneys to collect large amounts from businesses for "unfair business practices."

Exactly what bills may pop up in the final days is unclear because of the wholesale practice of stripping existing measures of their contents and writing into them entirely new pieces of legislation that are then rushed through both legislative houses with virtually no public notice or public hearings.

Last Thursday, for example, Assembly Speaker Herb Wesson took a minor bill dealing with the makeup of the state Veterans Board, stripped out its contents and inserted into it a completely new measure that would allow termed-out officeholders, such as himself, to continue to collect campaign funds even though they face no more elections. The money could be used for a variety of purposes, some of them quasi-personal.

If there is one measure that encapsulates how recall angst is affecting the last days of the session, it is SB 60, the much-debated bill that would allow illegal immigrants to obtain state driver's licenses. Davis vetoed earlier versions of the measure, clearly unwilling to risk the wrath of conservative and moderate voters -- but in doing so he angered Latino rights advocates, who consider it their highest political priority. Davis now is publicly eager to sign the measure, even though it contains fewer of the security safeguards that he had said were vital in the past.

He may soon have his chance. On Tuesday, the bill's sponsors agreed to remove provisions for using "biometric identifiers" on all licenses, which had raised hackles of civil libertarians, thereby clearing the way for final votes this week.

While a Davis signature on the immigrant license bill is certain, what's not certain is whether it and the other liberal measures moving through the Legislature this month will have a net positive or negative effect on his chances of surviving the recall.

They may well solidify opposition to the recall among liberal groups, but they may also provide Davis' critics with more ammunition to portray him as a captive of special interests who's out of step with California. And the licensure bill would appear to be especially dicey for Davis in that regard.