On a recent travel that included stops in Madison and Milwaukee, I made a point of stopping and spending some money atIan's Pizza, made famous during the initial winter protests. I would have spent money there no matter what, to show my support and appreciation, but was pleased to find friendly service and some pretty good pizza. I took my slice and a beer out to the State Street sidewalk, and ended up sitting with two other non-residents. It was the night before the recall elections for the six Republicans, a beautiful late-summer evening. College students were just starting to trickle back, but there was still some moderate foot traffic on State Street and, of course, quite a bit of buzz about the election the next day.
The two guys I ended up sitting with and talking to were a Californian in town for a bicycle expo and an older Alaskan who was retired and traveling the country on Amtrak.
The Californian happened to be in town by a coincidence of schedule, but the Alaskan had interrupted his travels and bused over from Milwaukee specifically to be in Madison on election day. We got to talking about the election and the points raised in that conversation led to this diary. Where does Wisconsin go from here?
First, let me recap what I know about Wisconsin recall law. Every state has different laws and procedures, and it is important to discuss the actual rules used in Wisconsin (too many times I see people jump in with misinformation based on how they do things where they are.) If I get anything wrong, I hope some cheeseheads will correct me. Some of this will be basic information for many of us, but I always hate diaries that assume the reader knows too much of the background, so I will lay it all out for the benefit of any reader who may not have been paying attention to the recall efforts so far.
As I understand it, in Wisconsin a public official may be recalled only after she or he has served in the current term for at least one year. This is a state law that is fairly well-known as everyone awaits the eligibility period for Gov. Scotty Walker. The recall election itself cannot be scheduled before the one-year waiting period; recall petitions may start earlier so long as they are within the window so that they would be filed after the one-year anniversary.
Another peculiarity of Wisconsin law is that, if the recall petitions are certified, the recalled official is placed on a ballot running against a challenger. If either party has more than one candidate, a primary election is held before the recall election. Unlike some states, the recall election does not have a line saying, "Shall such-and-such official be recalled, yes or no?" Instead there is simply an election with the incumbent or the challenger winning. This is important for the governor's race -- in many states a recalled governor is replaced by the lieutenant governor, but not in Wisconsin.
Finally, there is only one shot at the apple per official per term. In other words, for the four Republican and three Democratic state senators who survived their recall elections this past summer, they may not be subject to recall again during their current term of service (i.e., until after they are reelected).
Having set out the law (and, I hope, getting it right), I'd like to address the separate branches of government, based on what the three of us outsiders discussed over pizza and beer. The first, because it is the easiest to dispense with, is the state House of Representatives. It seemed to us that there would almost never be any reason to recall a house member, and certainly it would be pointless in this case. Because house members serve a two-year term, and the law does not allow a recall in the first year, recall would be an exercise in futility. Using this election cycle as an example, a recall petition for a house member could not be filed until January 2012. It would take at least a few weeks to validate the signatures. The election would be scheduled for at least a month out. If there is a primary (and the incumbent would be foolish not to have learned how easy it is to force a primary), the actual recall election would probably be at least two months out, or March 2012. No matter the outcome, there would be the normal cycle with a general election for the same spot in November 2012. It would be egregious behavior that would justify two primaries and elections for the same position in one year. We suggest (and I think most Wisconsinites would agree) that liberals, progressives and Democrats (not necessarily the same thing) in Wisconsin should forego any effort to recall house members and concentrate their resources and efforts on winning the house back in November.
As to the Governor, we were all aware of the current controversy going on in Wisconsin regarding when to force a recall. Most activists are champing at the bit and want to start gathering signatures in November to force a recall as soon as possible. Party establishment types are worried that an early petition would mean that the recall election would be scheduled to coincide with the presidential primary. Since there is no Democratic presidential contest, and a highly contested Republican presidential primary, party leaders fear a higher Republican turnout, which would make defeating Walker all that much harder. They bear in mind that state law only gives them one chance to get rid of Walker during this four-year term. If the recall election fails, Walker is safe until 2014, and nobody wants that. They argue that a later petition would probably schedule the recall election for the November 2012 general election, where they would expect a higher Democratic turnout. While we were not in general agreement, I took the position that timidity is not a virtue and the state would be better off getting rid of Walker as soon as possible. As long as the election is not scheduled for summer when college students are not concentrated around their campuses, turnout is something all of us can help with. It seems axiomatic that time is on the side of the incumbent.
Finally, there is the senate. At least two of us were amazed at the attitude we saw that said there is too much recall fatigue, and no more senate recalls should be done. (Remember, this conversation was the day before the election, and most residents we talked to were cautiously hopeful or confident or at least praying that at least three seats would change and the senate would switch to Democratic control.)
Here is the way we looked at it even before we knew the results. We may have had our numbers slightly off because, after all, none of us were residents and we followed the election with varying degrees of interest. We finally agreed that there were 19 Republican senators and eight of them were eligible for recall that summer, meaning they had been elected in 2008. If we were paying attention correctly, petitions were circulated for all eight of them, but two petitions were unsuccesful. That left 11 that were elected in 2010 and would become eligible for recall in January.
The most shallow analysis of those numbers indicated to us that the senators that were facing recall this summer won their seats in an election year that was very kind to Democrats. Obama carried Wisconsin and, to the extent he had coattails, these Republicans bucked the tide. It was almost surprising to us that the shift against the Walker administration and the Republican Party in general was so vehement that any of these incumbents could be considered vulnerable. If they won in a year when young voters turned out in droves to support Obama, how could they really lose in a summer election when college campuses were largely empty? These really did not seem like the prime targets for recall, except for the expediency of the law saying they were the ones you could go after.
Not knowing how the election would turn out the next day, we felt real excitement at the prospect of going after the 2010 class. These folk seemed the more easy pickings. If they won in the 2010 Republican juggernaut year, and if people have really soured on Republicans in Wisconsin, it seemed to us that they were the most vulnerable. We didn't know how many were freshmen, but we were pretty sure that the Senate flipped from Democratic to Republican control in 2010, meaning at least some of them had to be freshman. On top of everything else, freshmen incumbents are always more vulnerable than other incumbents. So we were excited. Hoping, as we were, that the Democrats would win at least three seats the next day, we were confident that Democrats would consolidate their gains by going after more Republicans in January. In the worst case, if they did not win the three they needed, it seemed to us that they had a fallback come January.
Instead, I read posts like this one from puddytat which suggest no more recalls for senators in 2012. As she states, in the general election in 2012, the only hope of retaking the senate is by winning one of the seats that either (a) they couldn't gather enough signatures to force a recall election or (b) beating one of the four senators that survived a recall election.
I understand recall fatigue, I really do. But if Democrats choose this strategy, I strongly suggest that they are giving up the senate for two more years. They are not going to beat any of those incumbents. Their only chance to take the senate is to go after the 2010 class, especially those elected from swing districts, or freshmen, or those who only won in 2010 because of the low Democratic and independent turnout. If they want to make Fitzgerald a minority leader, they should really go after the senate as soon as they can.
On this one, the timing is not necessarily so important. Whatever they decide on gathering petitions for the Walker recall, they should ask signers to also sign a petition for the Republican senators in those districts. They only need one win to flip the senate, and I strongly suspect they can win at least 3 or 4.
Anyway, those are my thoughts. I'd welcome feedback from Packer Nation, especially puddytat. I'd like her to flesh out her post and tell me where I'm wrong.