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Timing Is Everything: Wisconsin Democrats Fret Over Strategy For Walker Recall

Timing is everything.

With the legislative recall campaigns designed to dispose of enough GOP senators to return the upper body of the Wisconsin legislature to Democratic control well underway, attention is now turning toward the future of Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker.

Certainly, should the senate recall efforts turn out well for the Democrats, the excitement will be there to continue the process and take a shot at sending Scott Walker back home to Milwaukee.

The question is when to begin that effort.

Wisconsin law requires that once a petition drive to recall an elected official begins, those engaged in the effort have just 60 days to collect enough signatures to equal 25% of the total number of votes cast in the prior gubernatorial election.

That is a tall order- which is why many Wisconsin Democrats believe that they should get the Walker recall petitioning campaign going just as soon as the senate elections are wrapped up and while passions remain high.

In a normal situation, I think these folks would be right.

The problem is that any electoral strategy of this nature must rely on the election laws of the state when contemplating moves that work to the favor of one political party or the other. Unfortunately, the application of the law in Wisconsin – thanks to one of the most bizarre State Supreme Courts one can imagine – is anything but reliable.

Because of this unusual state of legal affairs, as we will see in a moment, getting the petition drive going sooner rather than later could result in a very unfortunate ending for those who would like to see Governor Walker go away.

First, an explanation of how things are supposed to work in the state.

Under Wisconsin election rules, once the recall petitions are turned in, election officials have 31 days to issue a “certificate of sufficiency” or “certificate of insufficiency”. Assuming the petitions are deemed sufficient, the Wisconsin Constitution requires that an election be scheduled on the first Tuesday six weeks following the certification of the election.

While the law appears completely clear that the only exception to the six week period would be where the party attempting the recall requires a primary to determine who their candidate will be- in which case the primary would be held six weeks after certification with the actual recall election to take place four weeks after completion of the primary- Wisconsin, as noted, does not appear to always operate to the letter of the law.

Thus, the Democratic concern is that were their recall petitions to be delivered for certification by the end of this year, or early in 2012, the GOP would work to move the statutory date when the recall election should take place to the date of the statewide election already scheduled for just a few weeks later.

That election happens to be the Republican presidential primary which is scheduled for the first week in April.

Obviously, if you’re looking to turn out Republican voters to support Governor Walker, the day of the Republican presidential primary would be about as good as it gets.

How, you might ask, could the GOP succeed in delaying an election that should take place no later than, say, the middle of February (assuming the petitions are in by the end of this year), until April?

Assuming that the Wisconsin Government Accountability Board, a non- partisan organization that oversees Wisconsin elections, would set the date for a statewide recall election according to the Constitutional requirements, the Republicans would likely engage in any number of challenges for the purpose of delay, including a court action(s) based on the argument that it is not in the best interest of the state to hold an election in February when one is already scheduled for the first week of April. After all, having to pay for two statewide elections when both could be held within a few weeks of the statutory date seems an unnecessary waste of state monies that are in short supply.

Never mind that the early April election just happens to be the GOP presidential primary.

Where would such a court action eventually be decided?

In the Wisconsin Supreme Court – the astoundingly politicized body where the friends of Scott Walker maintain a narrow majority thanks, in no small part, to the now infamous Justice David Prosser.

Maybe the Court would follow the law – maybe they would not.

Thus, were the Democrats to proceed with the recall effort shortly after the conclusion of the senate recalls next month, they may well be placing the future of Scott Walker in the hands of the Wisconsin Supreme Court – the last place they would like the matter to be decided.

The other option would be to wait until after the GOP presidential primary and try to time the recall election to take place on November 6, 2012, the day of the national elections. The strategy would be to pick that day based on the expectation that many Wisconsin Democrats will turn up to cast their vote for President Obama.

Of course, it would be impossible to pull this off given the state GOP’s willingness to get involved with dirty tricks. Were the Democrats to time things contemplating no primary election to pick the Democratic candidate, we can count on the GOP to run a ‘fake’ Democrat, as they did in numerous senatorial recall elections, to force a primary to throw off the timing. Were the Democrats to anticipate a fake primary, and time the recall election for 10 weeks following certification rather than six, the GOP would, no doubt, stay away from such a primary, resulting in the recall election happening a month before the November general elections.

Clearly, the Wisconsin Democratic Party finds itself in a very tricky position and one created by the uncertainty that comes when the state’s top judicial body cannot be counted upon to simply follow the law as written.

And therein lies the moral to the story. When we can no longer trust our judiciary to rule with fairness and according to law, democracy suffers.

While I may hold a few opinions, I really don’t know when the Wisconsin Democrats should seek to hold the recall election.

What I do know is that the Section 12 of the Wisconsin Constitution, drafted in 1926 and amended in 1981, is explicit and completely clear on the subject of how recall elections are to be handled and that no provision is made to alter the prescribed date of a recall election taking into consideration any factors other than those set forth in the state Constitution.

For Wisconsin Republicans -and supporters of Governor Walker- who would seek the political benefits of holding the election to recall Scott Walker on the day of the Republican primary rather than the day prescribed by their Constitution, I hope these people will bear in mind the deeply troubling hypocrisy of holding themselves out as ardent supporters of the Constitution only to turn their back on their own founding document when it is politically expedient to do so.

Personally, I hope the Wisconsin Democrats proceed immediately with the effort to recall Governor Walker.

If the state’s highest court -and those who believe that the Constitution trumps all- are prepared to throw their own Constitution overboard to save their governor, let them pay the price of such lawlessness that will surely come due for them.

If a Constitutional crisis is what it will take for Wisconsin citizens to understand what is happening to their state, I would also encourage Wisconsin Democrats to bet on their Constitution and see if your opposition is willing to pay the price for the sake of political expediency.

Let’s find out if Wisconsin Republicans love Scott Walker more than they love and respect their own Constitution. Let’s find out if they are willing to completely disregard the state’s moral and legal center all for the purpose of rigging an election to give the Governor the best possible chance of succeeding.

If Wisconsin Republicans wish to support their governor by coming out on whatever the legal election date works out to be, that is a valid exercise of their rights as Wisconsin citizens. But they should be willing to do it in accordance with the law of the State.

 

By: Rick Ungar, The Policy Page, Forbes, July 20, 2011

July 21, 2011 Posted by | Class Warfare, Collective Bargaining, Conservatives, Democracy, Elections, GOP, Gov Scott Walker, Governors, Ideologues, Ideology, Middle Class, Politics, Republicans, Right Wing, State Legislatures, States, Union Busting, Unions, Voters, Wisconsin, Wisconsin Republicans | , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Wisconsin Democratic State Senator Wins Recall In Landslide: Eight Races To Go

Wisconsin Democrats have now won a round in the state Senate recalls, with Dem incumbent state Sen. Dave Hansen easily winning against a politically weak and seemingly troubled challenger, GOP activist and recall organizer David VanderLeest.

With 65% percent of precincts reporting, Hansen is winning by 69%-31%, and has been projected as the winner by the Associated Press.

In two other races, where Republican primaries were being held, the votes are still being counted to determine who will face Democratic state Sens. Robert Wirch and Jim Holperin.

This leaves eight races to go. On August 9, general elections will be held in six races targeting incumbent Republicans. Then on August 16, two more races will be held targeting incumbent Democrats. Republicans currently control the chamber by a majority of 19-14. Democrats hope to gain a net three seats and win a majority in a backlash against GOP Gov. Scott Walker’s anti-public employee union legislation. In other words, control of the chamber is up for grabs.

This particular result was not in much doubt — due to the fact that VanderLeest has been plagued by questions about his fitness for office, after revelations about his personal finances and reports of domestic violence (which included a plea of no-contest to two charges of disorderly conduct).

As the election headed into its home stretch, VanderLeest made such statements as, “None of it’s true. I don’t smoke rocks, and that’s the truth,” and threatened to sue Hansen and various Democratic groups for slander. (He also claimed to have learned that there was an investigation against these groups for racketeering. The source: A complaint filed by a supporter close to his campaign.)

To be clear, VanderLeest was not the GOP’s preferred candidate. Instead, Republicans became stuck with VanderLeest after their originally recruited candidate, state Rep. John Nygren, failed to submit the required 400 valid petition signatures. Nygren submitted slightly over 400 signatures for himself — despite the fact that Republicans had been able to gather 18,000 signatures to trigger a recall — with not enough of a buffer for when a few them were disqualified. Nygren initially filed a lawsuit to get onto the ballot, but lost in court and announced he would not further appeal the decision.

In last week’s Democratic primaries, for races targeting six incumbent Republicans, the official Democratic candidates all won against fake Dem candidates — who were in fact Republican activists planted in the races by the state GOP in order to delay the general elections.

By: Eric Kleefield, Talking Points Memo, July 19, 2011

July 20, 2011 Posted by | Class Warfare, Collective Bargaining, Conservatives, Democracy, Gov Scott Walker, Ideologues, Ideology, Middle Class, Politics, Public Employees, Right Wing, State Legislatures, States, Wisconsin, Wisconsin Republicans | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Where Industry Writes State Law: How Business Lobbies Bought All The Laboratories Of Democracy

It sure is funny that, at basically the same time, state legislatures across the country began passing a slew of similar measures attacking collective bargaining, undocumented immigration and abortion, right? Just a weird coincidence, I’m sure, this sudden nationwide war on public employee unions and immigrants and women.

Hah, I am just kidding. We all know it’s because of lobbyists and the American Legislative Exchange Council. ALEC is sort of a Match.com for state lawmakers and the nation’s worst industry lobbies. The Center for Media and Democracy’s ALEC Exposed project has a handy list of the hundreds of bills ALEC pushes in every state in the union, on subjects ranging from school vouchers to gutting environmental regulations to opposition to the National Popular Vote Compact. (Yeah, that one I don’t even get.)

Here’s how the ALEC process works: GOP state legislators go to fancy conferences where they sit down with lobbyists and right-wing activists and draft right-wing legislation together. They return home and introduce it without mentioning the source. The lobbies then throw some cash at the legislators working to advance their agenda. Then, these days, the bill passes, and everyone else gets around to getting outraged about it, long after their outrage would do much good. Repeat.

This is how incredibly similar anti-immigration bills end up passing, independently, in Arizona and Tennessee. This is how bills against public employee collective bargaining end up passing in Wisconsin and Indiana. This is the process behind state resolutions banning the establishment of “Obamacare.” Our biggest national wars are being fought, and largely won, in the statehouses, with liberal activists not even joining the fight until after they’ve lost it.

Liberals aren’t this good at local politics. Unions and low-income organizations like ACORN used to take care of lobbying and politicking at the state and community level, but, oh, look what’s happened to them. Defunded!

It took a while for Democrats to figure out that they should have their own Heritage Foundation, and so far, they seem to be taking just as long to decide to create their own ALEC. (Of course the Democratic ALEC will probably also push “school reform” and pro-telecom bills and whatever else rich Democratic donors want.)

As a result of that late adoption, the famous laboratories of democracy are now often the places where massive, monied interests — along with their odd allies in the religious right — can implement their political agendas piece by piece, instead of trying to get their dream bills through the U.S. Congress, where all the cameras and journalists are. The sudden death of the small- and midmarket newspaper certainly helps. Your average local TV news doesn’t really do sophisticated policy analysis.

The closest thing liberals even have to a state to experiment with is … California, with its property-tax cap and public rejections of gay marriage and marijuana legalization. (Right-wingers know better than to trust legislating to the popular ballot, even though they’re quite good at organizing and spending huge sums of money to win ballot measures.)

Oh, the record number of bills restricting access to abortion services nationwide? That one might just be the natural Republican enthusiasm for controlling women’s bodies. I mean, the right-to-life groups obviously jumped into action when the GOP came into power and lobbied for all of the 162 new restrictions on reproductive rights enacted since the start of the year, but I’m not sure any specific business lobby benefits from it.

By: Alex Pareene, Salon, July 14, 2011

July 15, 2011 Posted by | Abortion, Anti-Choice, Businesses, Class Warfare, Collective Bargaining, Congress, Conservatives, Corporations, Democracy, Democrats, Equal Rights, GOP, Ideologues, Ideology, Immigration, Lawmakers, Media, Politics, Republicans, Right Wing, State Legislatures, States, Union Busting, Unions, Women, Women's Health, Womens Rights | , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

All Six Democrats Advance In Wisconsin Recall Election

The first in a series of recall elections, spurred by a contentious labor  fight, got under way in Wisconsin Tuesday.

Six Democrats easily cruised to primary wins as expected, and will face  Republican state senators who supported Gov. Scott Walker’s push to strip most  public employees of collective bargaining rights in a general election match-up  on Aug. 9. At stake is control of the narrowly divided, GOP-controlled  chamber.

The unusual primaries Tuesday pitted Democratic candidates  supported by the party against what news reports came to describe as “fake  Democrats” — six candidates put forward by the GOP because recall races with  only one challenger each would have bypassed the primary stage. Republicans  therefore backed what they called “protest candidates,” allowing the incumbent  GOP senators more time to campaign for the general election.

While outside groups campaigned on behalf of some of the Republican-sponsored  challengers, those candidates themselves did not seriously campaign. The  party-supported Democrats all won with comfortable margins — one as large as 40  percentage points — and only one race ended in single-digit margins. The recall  contests set up by Tuesday’s results include Democratic state Rep. Jennifer  Shilling vs. Republican state Sen. Dan Kapanke; Democratic state Rep. Fred Clark  vs. state Republican Sen. Luther Olsen and Democratic state Rep. Sandy Pasch vs.  Republican state Sen. Alberta Darling.

Wisconsin voters will go the polls again next Tuesday, when Green Bay  Democratic state Sen. Dave Hansen will be the first legislator to face a recall  general election since the state exploded in political protest in February.  Republicans in two Democratic-held Senate districts will also face off that day  in primaries, the winners of which will take on incumbents on Aug. 16. Unlike  State Democrats are not running “fake Republicans” in an effort to push back  recall dates.

By Aug. 16, nine state senators — six Republicans and three Democrats — will  have faced recall elections.

Walker’s fight against public employees unions prompted Senate Democrats to  flee the state in an effort to block a vote; protestors on both sides flooded  the Capitol and a fiercely competitive state Supreme Court race shortly  afterward snared national headlines. Republicans eventually managed to pass the  law, and it was upheld by the state Supreme Court — but not before Wisconsin  spent weeks at the center of a national political firestorm.

By: Dan Hirschhorn, Politico, July 12, 2011

July 12, 2011 Posted by | Class Warfare, Collective Bargaining, Conservatives, Corporations, Democracy, Democrats, Elections, GOP, Gov Scott Walker, Governors, Ideologues, Middle East, Politics, Republicans, Right Wing, State Legislatures, States, Union Busting, Unions, Voters, Wisconsin, Wisconsin Republicans | , , , | Leave a comment

Scott Walker’s Bogus “Mission Accomplished” Moment

National conservatives and Wisconsin Republicans have settled on a new talking point that they’re flogging relentlessly in the recall wars: Scott Walker’s proposal to bust public employee unions is already a success. Mere days after it became law.

In making this claim, it seems that Walker and conservative pundits are singing from the same sheet music. Walker made it on Face the Nation this Sunday; Rush Limbaugh has pushed it on his show; and Wisconsin GOP’ers facing recall campaigns are hammering away at it on the stump and in local media.

The notion that they’re pushing, however, is laughably bogus.

The basic claim focuses on a single school district out of hundreds — the Kaukauna School District, near Appleton, Wisconsin. After Scott Walker’s law went into effect last week, school officials announced new policies that they say will turn a deficit of $400,000 into a surplus of $1.5 million. Conservatives are claiming that this is because of Walker’s reforms to collective bargaining rules — the savings are the result, they say, of the fact that teachers and other school staff will pay more in health care costs and pension costs.

On Face the Nation this weekend, Walker amplified this claim, pointing to this specific school district as proof that his reforms had given schools and local governments the “tools” they need to turn their budgets around. “Those are the things we promised,” Walker exulted.

Limbaugh has also pushed this claim hard, arguing on his show recently that this proved Walker’s critics wrong. “Remember all of those fights, all of those protests, and all the bickering, and all the caterwauling, and all the complaining from these public employees in Wisconsin about taking their collective bargaining rights away?” Rush said. “That law goes into effect and immediately turns a $400,000 budget deficit into a one-and-a-half-million-dollar surplus in one school district.”

But here’s the thing: The collective bargaining ban, in and of itself, was not responsible for achieving these savings and this surplus. As the Appleton Post Crescent reports, the teachers union had already offered up financial concessions that would have produced almost identical savings and an almost identical surplus.

What’s more, the use of this one district to declare Walker’s policies a success is almost comical in its cherry-picking. There are 424 school districts in Wisconsin, and as the AP recently noted, Walker’s policies mean draconian budget cuts to 410 of them, with labor officials and school districts predicting increased class sizes and layoffs.

Walker’s premature declaration of victory — and the right wing echo chamber’s flacking of it — could look awfully silly when the full bill for his policies really comes due. And the notion that this one school district’s fiscal success is in any way a referendum on the most controversial aspect of Walker’s union busting proposal is laughable. This fight has never been about public employees’ unwillingness to make fiscal concessions — and always about stripping them of their rights.

By: Greg Sargent, The Washington Post, July 6, 2011

July 7, 2011 Posted by | Class Warfare, Collective Bargaining, Conservatives, Democracy, Economy, Elections, GOP, Gov Scott Walker, Government, Governors, Health Care Costs, Ideologues, Ideology, Labor, Lawmakers, Media, Middle Class, Politics, Press, Public Employees, Republicans, Right Wing, State Legislatures, States, Union Busting, Unions, Wisconsin, Wisconsin Republicans | , , , , | Leave a comment

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