Curmudgeon's Corner

Another Kick at the Cat

Posted by Al Campbell on Oct. 11, 2011

Wisconsin, Political

We have another recall campaign coming beginning on November 15^th.  Gov. Scott Walker is the subject in what has been a poorly kept secret.

Mike Tate, the Democratic Party head in Wisconsin, made it official yesterday.  He says they already have the names of 203,000 people who have expressed a willingness to sign a petition for the recall of Governor Walker.  If that is a valid statement and if these people follow through, they represent less than 38% of the total of 540,000 signatures needed to make this happen.

The whole signature-gathering process must be accomplished within the sixty days beginning on November 15^th.

Walker has made it plain that he expected to be the subject of just such an effort.  His former chief of staff recently returned to his former company which will be instrumental in the campaign if there is to be a campaign.  Polls show that there is a significant part of the voting public that is not enamored with Governor Walker.  He has been the subject of an enormous amount of publicity, much of it bad publicity.

He has assured himself that public sector unions will be rallying against him, and they will bring other unions into that fight as has been apparent for the past many months.  Those public sector unions, notably WEAC, are most threatened by the rules that say the state will no longer collect dues and pay those over to the unions monthly.  They are threatened by the requirement for recertification votes annually and by the change in counting votes to require that 51% or more of all members, not just those voting, must be in favor of the recertification of their union.  Many of those union locals have not taken the required step to even hold those recertification elections since the unions have been relegated to much-diminished stature by the legislature.

The requirement for 540,000 valid signatures is a high hurdle.  Those must be gathered over the Christmas holiday season and New Year’s holiday season.  There has been much speculation about whether or not the state Democratic Party can look for support from the national party.  There has been much speculation about how much, if any, financial and ‘boots on the street’ support can be expected from the national union organizations that were here in force earlier this year.

Only time will tell but the die has now been cast.  Beyond this, what can we expect if Governor Walker survives this challenge?  By the way his opponents have acted up to now, this won’t be the end of their opposition moves.  Have we moved into a new political reality?  Are we now going to be in perpetual campaign mode, just as we seem to have been since President Obama took office?