LIST GROWS IN EFFORT TO OUST DAVIS.

Byline: Harrison Sheppard Staff Writer

The movement to recall Gov. Gray Davis spent about $3 million, or about $1.90 per signature, to get the issue on the ballot, according to campaign finance reports filed Thursday.

Also on Thursday the field of potential candidates grew larger as Rep. Elton Gallegly, R-Thousand Oaks, took out papers to run. This brings the total to 258 people statewide who have taken steps to get on the Oct. 7 ballot to replace Davis, a spokesman for the Secretary of State's Office said.

Davis supporters spent $1.8 million to oppose the recall getting on the ballot, new finance reports show, and they are expected to crank up fund raising now the campaign is under way.

The pro-recall groups submitted 1.6 million signatures - 1.3 million of them valid - to force the election. Each side expects to spend more than $15 million in the coming campaign.

Davis and his supporters have criticized recall proponents for using paid signature gatherers, funded largely by Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Vista, who is a candidate for governor on the recall ballot.

``This was a big-money signature-gathering campaign largely financed by one individual who wanted to create an election so he could get himself elected governor,'' said Carroll Wills, a spokesman for Taxpayers Against the Governor's Recall. ``We think that's just offensive - that one person and a small collection of partisans can basically use money to manipulate and distort the recall process.''

But officials with Rescue California, the group that, with Issa's financial support, collected most of the signatures, said all the money did was provide the logistical ability for people to express their anger at the governor.

``You have to have the will of the people to sign it,'' said Phil Paule, director of Rescue California. ``All the money did was bring the petition closer to the people.''

Rescue California spent $2.4 million, while the other main recall groups spent about $500,000. Issa spent $622,000 through June 30 on his gubernatorial effort in addition to providing about three-fourths of Rescue California's funds.

Taxpayers Against the Governor's Recall was the original group opposing the recall effort before it qualified for the ballot. The group raised $1.8 million and spent most of it. Davis formed a separate committee, Californians Against the Costly Recall, which began after the latest finance-reporting period.

Davis' pre-existing gubernatorial campaign committee, the Gov. Gray Davis Committee, also raised funds over the last six months - about $300,000 - and ended up with a cash balance of $881,000, money that campaign officials said can be transferred into his new anti-recall group.

Gallegly, a nine-term congressman and former mayor of Simi Valley, put forward his name but said he has not firmly decided to run. Tackling illegal immigration, which he said ``is at the root of California's economic problems,'' is one of his top priorities.

``Every day we're generating more people that are coming in undocumented, illegally, that provide a great added liability on our economic system, whether it be health care or education,'' Gallegly said. ``This is not something that anyone who's being intellectually honest can deny.''

Actor Arnold Schwarzenegger is said to be leaning against running in the election but has been keeping the political world in suspense for more than a week as he delays an announcement.

Former mayor Richard Riordan is gearing up his campaign machinery on the assumption that Schwarzenegger won't run. Businessman Bill Simon is all but officially declared. Others considering running or being publicly urged to run include state Sen. Tom McClintock, R-Thousand Oaks; columnist Arianna Huffington; and her ex-husband, former Rep. Michael Huffington.

On the Democratic side, Hustler magazine publisher Larry Flynt also threw his hat into the ring, as did the Hollywood billboard icon known simply as Angelyne.

Harrison Sheppard, [phone]

harrison.sheppard(at)dailynews.com