In Print & On the Air

THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, Sacramento Bee, San Jose Mercury News and San Francisco Chronicle reported Aug. 4 that Law School Dean KATHLEEN SULLIVAN has joined Gov. Gray Davis' legal team petitioning to delay the October recall election until next March and to give the governor the right to replace himself on the ballot. "What's happening in California is not just a battle over the governor," Sullivan told the Mercury News. "It's a battle over the Constitution." Sullivan also said in an Aug. 3 conference call with reporters: "The California Supreme Court has an opportunity to avert the train wreck we saw in Florida 2000 by taking this case in advance of the Oct. 7 election."

TEN MONTHS AFTER VETOING A bill that would have let illegal immigrants get driver's licenses, Gov. Gray Davis has reversed course, drawing accusations that he is pandering to Hispanics to try to save his job in the upcoming recall vote, the Associated Press reported Aug. 2. LUIS FRAGA, an associate professor of political science, said that signing such a bill could prove powerfully appealing to Hispanics, whose vote is vital to Davis' future. Hispanics make up more than a third of California's population and 14 percent of the electorate, twice their voting strength from a decade ago. "The key to the Latino vote is mobilizing the voters and getting the folks to turn out," Fraga said. "His support for a bill like this is an important mobilizer." The bill has passed the Senate and will be heard by the Assembly after the Legislature returns from recess Aug. 18.

PHYSICS PROFESSOR AND NOBEL laureate DOUGLAS OSHEROFF, a member of the board investigating the space shuttle Columbia disaster, told the Associated Press Aug. 2 that he fears NASA may be doomed to suffer more tragedies unless it changes the culture that has led to flawed decision-making. The "same faulty reasoning" that led to the 1986 Challenger accident also led to Columbia, said Osheroff, one of the 13 board members wrapping up the report on the accident. "No matter how good the report looks, if we don't do something to change the way NASA makes its decisions, I would say that we will have been whistling in the wind," he said. "At the moment, I'm in a state of depression." Several Columbia board members have said the space agency needs dramatic change, but Osheroff said he is pessimistic that can be accomplished.