Curmudgeon's Corner

Recall Mania - Round Two

Posted by Al Campbell on Nov. 16, 2011

Wisconsin, Political, Economy, Education, Quality of Life

Recall Mania – Round Two has begun in earnest.  The Governor, Lt. Governor and four Senators, all Republicans, are in the process of being recalled providing sufficient signatures are gotten by the groups of signature seekers who have volunteered and/or are being paid for the effort.

It seems that “big labor” has marked Wisconsin for more and more actions such as these recalls.  Some $30 million was spent by the two candidates in the race for Senator Darling’s seat.  There are reports that from $50 million to $100 million could be the amount spent in the race for Governor Walker’s seat.

We have no idea of what the costs to taxpayers will be for this series of elections assuming there will be enough signatures collected to cause the need for an election.

Will anyone really win, or is this a case of everyone losing?  Even if the current office holders stay in office, they and their supporters and the general taxpaying population will lose.  Those folks will have made additional political contributions and taxpayers will have to foot the bill for all the election workers, etc., etc.

Even if “big labor” wins and removes one or more current office holders, it will have spent its members’ money and depleted its coffers for the coming presidential election in 2012.  The best it can hope for is a stand-off.

So far, there are no selected candidates to succeed any of these current officeholders if they were subjected to recall elections.  The big names, those who have good name recognition amongst the state’s voters, have declined to run (that ought to tell others something).  That leaves candidates, whenever they are finally selected, who will have a very short window for campaigning and who will have a very steep hill to climb if they are to be in the race.

Germantown’s school levy was reduced by 2.5% as the result of the actions of those who are now subject to the second round of recall elections.  Budget deficits were eliminated, and the state’s budget is now balanced (and potentially will show a surplus). 

Apparently, if taxes continue to increase and if there are continuing budget deficits, that is okay since there were no recall attempts during the most recent era.  But dare there actually be some tough love applied, and we become ground zero for every union activist in the country.

We were at the point of being unable to sustain the cost structure that had been permitted to mature to what it was, and we voted for people who said they would fix those problems.  They did what they said they’d do and we are back to a sustainable budget without deficits. 

We need to get out of the recall round-about we seem to be close to being in perpetually.  The laws for recalls need to be tightened so they cannot be abused as they are being today.  We already have the ability to recall any person from office; it is called the regular election cycle of every two or four years in Wisconsin.  This abuse of the system was never intended by those who framed the current rules.  But then again we didn’t have the lack of civility that we seem to have today.  Mike Tate and Company appears to think this is the proper way to conduct themselves, and it is anything but the proper way.