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United Wisconsin Closing In On Recall Signatures

Posted by: Linda Carbonell on December 15, 2011.

Scott Walker by Donkey Hotey, Creative Commons

Halfway through the 60 days allowed to collect signatures for a recall election, United Wisconsin has 507,533 of the necessary6 540,208. The need 32,675 verifiable signatures to force a recall of Governor Scott Walker. They have averaged 18,126 signatures a day for the past 28 days.

Republican Party spokesman Ben Sparks says that voters who elected Walker won’t return the state to Democratic control. “We have no doubt the Democrats are rallying their left-wing base around their blatant power grab for the governor’s mansion.”

The party filed suit on Thursday challenging the methods of the state board overseeing elections. The suit claims the board doesn’t do enough to verify the signatures on a recall petition. United Wisconsin said at the outset of the signature drive that they wanted a cushion of up to 180,000 extra signatures in case of signatures being invalidated. Democrats apparently believe the elections board does its job very well. The Government Accountability Board reviews the petitions to make sure there are enough of them and each signature has a Wisconsin address and is dated within the 60-day time frame. It is up to the Republicans to challenge individual signatures if they choose to. The suit claims that the process, which is set out in Wisconsin law, violates the U. S. Constitution’s equal protection clause because the voices of those who choose not to sign are overwhelmed by the voices of those who sign multiple times. Board director Kevin Kennedy said the rules have been in place since the late 1980s and “Since then, these rules have been used in every state and local recall petition effort against incumbents of both parties.” Ah, yes, the classic Republican blunder – when you don’t think you have a snowball’s chance in a blast furnace legally, prove that to voters by filing lawsuits to challenge the process. Meantime, Assembly Speaker Jeff Fitzgerald, younger brother of the infamous Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald, said that the “public” is losing confidence in the GAB and Wisconsin needs a new structure to deal with recalls and ethics investigations, like the two partisan-appointee committees they used to have. Second classic Republican blunder – when you can’t win fair and square, cast aspersions on the ethics of those in charge of monitoring your ethics and really make the voters wonder about your ethics.

Walker has also been whining to whatever news outlet will listen that “the unions” have poured millions in out-of-state money into the effort to remove him from office. A Walker supported filed a purely bogus recall intention with the GAB before the real recall intention was filed, so that Walker could get donations from wealthy supporters at an out-of-state event. Walker has raised $5.1 million since July and spent $3.9 million to keep his job. The Democrats have – thanks to those subversive, deep-pocketed, out-of-state unions – raised $1.1 million and spent $540,000 in the same 5 months. Walker’s math is a little off, since he says he has more than $3 million cash in hand (about $1.8 million more than the math) and the Dems only have $560,000. Walker has been running campaign ads since the night before the recall process began, and Americans for Prosperity, the Koch brother’s personal PAC has been buying ads for Walker.

The petitioners are also collecting signatures to recall Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch. They need the same 540,208 to do that, but have not said how many they have collected, other than they mirror Walker’s total.

The GAB plans to ask a court to extend the review period for the signatures from 31 to 60 days. The Republicans would only have 10 days to challenge the signatures, but Walker is planning to request an extension as well. The delays could push a recall election into May.

Democrats are also circulating petitions for the recall of four more incumbent Republican state senators. They managed to get recall elections of six Republicans last fall, but only won two seats. They were one seat short of being able to regain control of the Senate. At the very least, taking back the Senate would prevent the kind of juggernaut tactics that pushed through the anti-union measures last winter.

Wisconsin Democrats would like to see former U. S. Senator Russ Feingold run against Walker in the recall election, but he has said he is not interested in the job.

The desire to kick Walker out of office dates back to his budget. To address a $3.6 billion deficit, Walker shoved through an unnecessary law ending collective bargaining rights for public employees even after they had agreed to pay more for their benefits, got authorization to sell off state-owned power plants and cut $1 billion from county and municipal funding, outlawed county municipal governments raising local taxes and gave a $1 billion tax cut to the state’s wealthiest residents. His explanation for the tax cut was the standard trickle-down bull. He gave the cut, nothing has trickled down except the hardships of more layoffs and severe cut backs in local governments. Walker is in a downhill race with Ohio’s Republican Governor John Kasich for most unpopular governor in the nation.