Last week, the Wisconsin Government Accountability Board certified six recall elections against Republican state senators — yet they claim they need more time to certify the three recall elections against Democratic senators. This despite the fact that some of the signatures required to force the Democrats’ recalls were submitted before the signatures submitted to recall Republicans.
This brought howls of protest from the GOP, as it may set up a scenario where the six recall elections against Republicans are held on a different day than the three recall elections against Democrats. That will mean that on one election day, Democratic volunteers won’t have to protect any of their incumbents. As one GOP operative told me, it will allow Democrats to “rush eleven,” in football parlance. Democrats need to pick up three seats to regain control of the Senate.
Two Republican incumbent senators face long odds. One of them is Randy Hopper from Fond du Lac, who represents a strong GOP district but has some personal issues to work out with his constituents. During the initial round of protests, demonstrators showed up at Hopper’s Fond du Lac home to picket, but were told by Hopper’s wife to buzz off because he lived down in Madison with his 25-year-old mistress.
Republican Dan Kapanke faces the opposite problem — he is well liked (he owns a minor league baseball team in La Crosse), but his district leans Democrat. He is facing a challenge from incumbent assemblywoman Jennifer Shilling, who is running an ad asking “Are you going to tell seniors they can’t retire, and if they do, they can’t go to the doctor?” (Ah, yes, who can forget Governor Walker’s famous “Seniors Can’t Retire or Go to the Doctor” Act?)
If both Hopper and Kapanke lose, that leaves only one more seat Democrats have to pick up to retake the Senate. In order to delay recall elections, the GOP has planned to run fake Democratic primary candidates against the GOP challengers, which would push the elections back another month. That would give Republicans an extra month’s worth of distance from the collective-bargaining imbroglio that got them in this situation, and would allow more time to campaign.
Yet this will almost certainly be seen as a “dirty trick” by media and some voters. It certainly appears like an admission that Republicans are struggling. And while it can be argued that the recall elections in themselves are merely dirty tricks, enough of a double standard exists that this ploy could backfire. (Last year, Democrats themselves used a similar trick, running a fake Republican against a very conservative Independent candidate, hoping it would split the vote and give victory to a Democrat.)
While all this unfolds, unions and their allies have set up a small city of tents outside the capitol, dubbing it “Walkerville.” (Others have derisively begun calling it “Entitledtown.”) Last week, boisterous singing protesters forced an American Red Cross blood drive from the statehouse. Marches continue around the capitol square, complete with chants of “Tax, tax, tax the rich!” No one seems to recognize the irony of teachers being able to spend all summer protesting their unfair treatment because they don’t have to go to work for three months.
At least that’s three months where they won’t be able to force elementary school kids to draw pictures of Scott Walker as the devil as part of an art class assignment.
— Christian Schneider is a senior fellow at the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute.
Money quote: "In order to delay recall elections, the GOP has planned to run fake Democratic primary candidates against the GOP challengers, which would push the elections back another month. That would give Republicans an extra month’s worth of distance from the collective-bargaining imbroglio that got them in this situation, and would allow more time to campaign.
Yet this will almost certainly be seen as a “dirty trick” by media and some voters."
Plan to run "fake" challengers. Sure sounds like a dirty trick. I would hope that the many who've commented previously about Democrats always playing foul against the Republicans will chime in with indignant opposition to this trick.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI do not understand the trick in this comment or the original comment. I don't understand the recall process.
It appears that the run off is not a free for all like California had, where first they voted to recall Gray Davis, and then who ever got the most votes won the election, even by plurality. In that scenario, I could see all kinds of dirty tricks being used to confuse the electorate.
Does the Wisconsin recall operate by party? That just seems wrong. The Democrats get to have a primary to determine who runs against the incumbent, but a Tea Party candidate is forced to run in the Democrat primary where he will lose? Or is it that the Tea Party candidate will run in the Dem primary, with the intention of losing, but also postponing the final election?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseOk, I read the link and it didn't really help. Is this really a recall election or is it some sort of hybrid special election?
Why do Democrats get to choose a challenger and why don't Republicans get to challenge (if they wanted)? I would think you could run a GOP challenger against the incumbent before running a GOP challenger in the DEM primary.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWould that be at all akin to running a fake Tea Party candidate in NY 26 just recently? Just asking.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseIf the Republican's run phony candidates, I will indignantly oppose it. I don't like or approve of gamesmanship in elections, and think very little of those that engage in it.
I respectfully disagree about "the money quote." I think it is this one: "Last year, Democrats themselves used a similar trick, running a fake Republican against a very conservative Independent candidate, hoping it would split the vote and give victory to a Democrat."
Will you now indignantly oppose this tactic?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI don't doubt that the Wisconsin recall process can be subjected to all kinds of game-playing and no party or faction has a leg to stand on in accusing the "other side" of engaging in dirty tricks.
Assuming that states are going to have "recall", however, there are a couple of things they could do that would improve the process:
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse1. Require a supermajority for a successful recall. It doesn't seem like a great idea that, after electing someone with only 50.1% (or even less than 50%) of the vote, you can toss him out of office with a bare majority - seems to create far too much instability. Why not require 60% or something like that so that you treat recall as a genuine "aberration" in the process akin to impeachment?
2. Don't combine the election of a successor with the recall of the incumbent. Your state should (and if it doesn't it should get it) have a method for replacing an incumbent who leaves office early. Use that process - even if the "process" is an election held a couple of months later. In other words, reduce the game-playing by allowing some predictability in the outcome of the recall - it would be just as if the incumbent had resigned.
One quick observation, Mr. Schneider. Yes, teachers have all summer off. No, we don't get paid for the summer months. We only get paid for the days we are in the classrooms.
Please don't lump all of us with the looney tune teachers in your state. As shocking as it may seem, there are a few conservative teachers out here. And yes, I know, we're an endangered species.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseCome on Steve. You can't have it both ways. Either you get paid $50k a year (nice round number) with 3 months summer vacation or you get paid a pro-rated $75k a year working 9 months.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseDave either (1) went to a private school, was (2) homeschooled or (3) is old enough to have been in a public school pre-union where kids were actually taught something like math.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseSorry, Dave, but you'd have a hard time passing my science class with reasoning like that. Here's reality.
Each year, I am given a contract for 183 days each year. Three days are for teacher preparation/principal training time, the other 180 days are for when the students are in class. No, I don't get a 3 month "vacation." I get three months off with no pay. During those three months with no pay, I review my curriculum and make changes as needed. I attend workshops and classes related to my subject.I spend time in the summer reorganizing my classroom so it will be ready the first day of school. This is done on my time, frequently at my expense (I have paid for workshops/classes out of my own pocket over half the time).
Sorry, but you can't have it both ways. Frankly, conservatives using reasoning like this when it comes to teachers drives me up a wall.
The majority of teachers are not the enemy. We're dedicated men and women who do all we can to give our students the best education we can within the limits that are placed on us by District, State Legislatures, Congress, unelected bureaucrats, and idiot judges.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI don't consider you the enemy, and thank you for being the rare conservative teacher.
But, just for the exercise: Lets say I have a job where I get paid $6,000/month for 9 months, with 3 months no work/no pay ($54,000/yr). My brother has the same job in a different state. He also works 9 months and is off 3 months. He makes $4,500/mo, but is paid for 12 months. As a result, he also makes $54,000/yr. Other than the consistency of the cash flow, what is the difference in our income? Purely technically, I could say I was not paid for the 3 months, but isn't that (cash flow excluded) a distinction without a difference?
If someone noted that if I truly was only paid 9 months salary, my pro-rated income for the year would then be $72,000 (if I had been paid all 12 months), would that person be wrong?
(And I do realize the other commenter added 50% more pay rather than 33.3% more pay, which is mathematically incorrect, but is the idea off base?)
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseEducators often get paid over 12 months for the school year. Thus they accrue the pay for the summer months during the school year.
Some may get extra pay for summer school, or other summer programs, but many do not.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI'm a conservative from Wisconsin and my read on the situation is that it has been "Amateur Hour" at the Walker Administration. He goes for the jugular against public sector unions used to having their way in the state, and then has no plan to deal with the union sympathizer protestors who hijack the Capitol and the 14 AWOL Democrat Senators who cross the border into Illinois. Instead of having a non-budget bill on collective bargaining ready to vote on as soon as the AWOL Dems leave the state and voting on it within 24 hours of them leaving, he waits 3 weeks (!) while the protestors (and the liberal press) go nuts and the AWOL Dems take a mini-vacation. Then when they vote on the non-budget bill, they screw up the open meetings notice, all leading to a court challenge over the collective bargaining bill and recall elections for anyone who supported it. Finally, they don't fix the notice problem with the collective bargaining bill by voting on it again.
This just dumb politics.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseHold your horses there seapuss... If you check the court ruleing they upheld the vote in special session... the republicans did nothing wrong... And BTW it has been my experiance that anyone who starts out with "I'm a conservative from Wisconsin..." probably isn't they just want to have true conservative think there is desention in the ranks..
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI do not live in Wis, nor do I want to. Don't those people up there know that the government is broke and their union officials have all the money? Does the eveyday working stiff think that his life is going to be the same after the union thugs break the state budget? These poor smucks think that they will continue to get back 100 fold what they never paid for? The rest of this country's taxpayers do not want to fund the Wis workers benefits.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseYou are so correct. I don't understand why so many just don't "get it!"
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse@SteveHill
"I get three months off with no pay. During those three months with no pay, I review my curriculum and make changes as needed. I attend workshops and classes related to my subject.I spend time in the summer reorganizing my classroom so it will be ready the first day of school. This is done on my time, frequently at my expense (I have paid for workshops/classes out of my own pocket over half the time)."
Crying crocodile tears for you Steve. In order to stay consistently employed through a 26 year IT career, I have had to spend my time and money keeping up w/current trends in my specialty....above and beyond what training my employer may or may not pay. It's a fact of life that most in the (non union) private sector accept. And those that are self employed, aren't paid for their time off, they don't get unemployment benefits, and they don't get an administrative position when they screw up, they get fired.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseHound: I don't approve of dirty tricks on either side. My point is that there are many who comment on this site who claim that only Democrats engage in "dirty tricks" and assume some fictional moral high ground--that is until the right does the same thing and then they rely on the childish "they did it too" to justify the dirty trick.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseGov Walker and his merry band are an embarrassment. While I support a lot of what they have done in regards to public unions, they didn't campaign on it. The recalls are sadly deserved.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseGov Walker and the Republicans are not the embarrassment it is the cowardly Dems who ran away from their jobs who are the embarrassment Those recalls are happily deserved. And BTW.. No politician campaigns on EVERY decision they will make in office. That is an impossible task. You need to rethink your position.
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