The signature gathering process to force Gov. Scott Walker into a recall election has received massive media attention over the last two months. But four GOP state Senators are under threat of recall as well.
Public employee unions and their allies have been collecting recall signatures to force four more Republican state senators into 2012 recall elections for voting to curtail their collective bargaining rights as part of the budget repair bill in 2011. If organizers succeed in qualifying all four senators for recall elections this spring, they will only have to defeat one of the four to retake control of the state Senate they lost in the November 2010 elections. Republicans currently control the upper house 17 to 16.
Swing Seats
Recall organizers have targeted these four seats for two primary reasons. Three of the four – Wanggaard, Moulton and Galloway - are “swing seats,” meaning those districts have elected Democrats as well as Republicans. The other seat, belonging to Fitzgerald, would seem to be motivated by a desire to harass the Majority Leader and occupy his time with a race of his own. That way he may have less time to help the other three with their races. Sen. Fitzgerald’s district will be more difficult than the other three to successfully execute a recall election since it tends to be more Republican-leaning.
What the Numbers Say
Three of the four districts voted for Justice David Prosser in last spring’s contentious Supreme Court race by comfortable margins: Fitzgerald, Wanggaard and Galloway. Republicans view the outcome of the 2011 Supreme Court race between Justice Prosser and Attorney JoAnn Kloppenburg as a model for hints on the possible outcome in future recall elections in their districts. The Prosser-Kloppenburg race became a proxy fight between Gov. Walker and the public employee unions over the collective bargaining issue. If Prosser carried their district, so the logic goes, chances are they might survive a race of their own.
Three of the four senators are freshman, elected in November 2010: Wanggaard, Moulton and Galloway. As first-term Senators caught up in a highly charged political environment, organizers hope they can defeat these three before they have more time to solidify their hold on these districts.
Three districts - Wanggaard, Moulton and Galloway - voted for Obama in 2008, and all four voted for Walker in 2010.Three seats easily qualify as true “swing seats” and give Democrats their best chance to regain the majority by defeating one or more in a recall.
Democrats want to force all four Republicans to face a recall election in their current districts before the newly drawn districts go into effect in November 2012, notwithstanding legal challenges currently under way. Republicans designed the new Senate district lines in July 2011, and thus the new districts would make it more difficult for Democrats to retake control of the Senate or hold it for more than a short time even if they did.
Unlike the nine state Senate recall elections last summer, these four Republican Senators will have to compete with Gov. Walker for money, attention and help. The 2011 summer recall elections focused exclusively on the nine Senators who were forced to run. Assuming Walker goes to recall, these four will have to complete for resources and attention, and the unions believe this may improve their chances to defeat the Senate GOP.
Signature collectors must submit all their papers to the Government Accountability Board (GAB) by January 17, 2012 for Gov. Walker and all four GOP senators. After that, the GAB must certify all petitions for accuracy, and this could take months.
More to come later!
Joe Murray is Director of Political and Governmental Affairs for the WRA.