Wisconsin State Senate Recalls

Probably about the same way somebody should take "I did read your posts, all of them. And now I have this song stuck in my head: You spin me right 'round baby right 'round..."

MattDaddy wrote:

Fair enough. Although I'm not sure how else to take that sentence.

The point I'd intended to make in my post comparing margins of victory in the recalls versus margins of victory in the Gubernatorial election was a rebuttal to the notion that this was a vindication of Walker's policies. I see an increasingly polarized electorate, with the middle slightly tending Democrat - though that still seems very fluid to me and may well change at any point (they may also end up tuning out of the political realm entirely, in large numbers). The Badger poll excerpt was to make the same point - namely, that the state as a whole doesn't appear as sold on Governor Walker's agenda as you seem to think.

MattDaddy's post seemed to miss the point of my comparison by a large enough margin that I honestly wasn't sure it had been read. The fact that Seth misunderstood my post as being spin makes me think that I just didn't communicate well there.

I'm not trying to spin failing to take three seats, even in tough races, as a victory.

I do think that, if the Democrats hold next week's seats, Senator Schultz is in a position to be a strong moderating influence on state GOP policy. I don't think we're likely to have a Jim Jeffords moment (though I'd be happy to be wrong), but I am cautiously optimistic that we'll see less aggressively partisan legislation passed in the near term.

Dimmerswitch wrote:
MattDaddy wrote:
Dimmerswitch wrote:

I'm not sure you read my post.

I did read your posts, all of them. And now I have this song stuck in my head: You spin me right 'round baby right 'round...........

Fair enough. When you want to have serious conversations again, I'll be here. :)

You are reaching pretty far. The Democrats won a Democratic distirict and beat a cheating weak candidate, barely in a Republican district. They didn't beat Darling which is who would have shown any real movement towards the Democrats.

At best they won two seats and most likely they're going to lose a seat next week which means all of that money was spent to win one seat that will be taken back in a year. That is a horrible RoI and the unions aren't going to be around to blow money in 2012 on Scott Walker. They will be too busy trying to get President Obama reelected.

The Democrats on MSNBC were quite funny when I was watching it and once Darling won they just shut up. I'm surprised that so many people are so willing to attack a county clerk in a small midwestern county and treat her as if she's some evil politicial operative instead of a semi-competent county official in a VERY conservative county. People were suprised that Menomonee Falls was going to be a huge push for Darling? From the Supreme Court election they found no wrongdoing just the clerk not being the best of officials.

Dimmerswitch wrote:

MattDaddy's post seemed to miss the point of my comparison by a large enough margin that I honestly wasn't sure it had been read. The fact that Seth misunderstood my post as being spin makes me think that I just didn't communicate well there.

I didn't miss your point, I disagreed with it. You chose 2 items to back your claim while failing to acknowledge any other evidence. That's why I see it as spin.

Ulairi wrote:

I'm surprised that so many people are so willing to attack a county clerk in a small midwestern county and treat her as if she's some evil politicial operative instead of a semi-competent county official in a VERY conservative county. People were suprised that Menomonee Falls was going to be a huge push for Darling? From the Supreme Court election they found no wrongdoing just the clerk not being the best of officials.

I hadn't seen that the GAB was done with their investigation. The last I'd heard was that the investigation was expanded to include all races Kathy Nickolaus oversaw as far back as 2006. (I just checked on the GAB website and don't see anything posted - if in fact the investigation has already cleared her, I'd love a link).

We went over a good chunk of this in the State Supreme Court thread, but the highlight reel of why there's distrust towards Kathy Nickolaus is:

* An audit in the fall of 2010 made recommendations to improve security and backup procedures, which were entirely ignored.
* In January 2011, the discussion of that noncompliance with the GOP-controlled County Board grew heated as Kathy continued to resist even rudimentary security measures like having different usernames for each employee, so there would be a record of who made which changes.
* In March of 2011, local Department of Administration head Norm Cummings warned that the hardware and software Kathy Nickolaus' office was using were "obsolete, not repairable and unsupportable" and that without improvements, he worried that the elections system could be "inoperative and irrecoverable."
* Kathy refused to cooperate with the DOA on confirming her software worked correctly, or to share her plans for backing up data. In fact, her response to this criticism was to move the master copy of all county results onto her personal laptop.
* The reason Kathy gave for being so dismissive of the audit recommendations, and for refusing to cooperate with the DOA was that she was a programmer for 15 years before becoming County Clerk.
* In the State Supreme Court election, where her former boss was the incumbent candidate, Kathy ended up revising her election-night numbers because she allegedly forgot to hit save after entering the City of Brookfield. The changed results gave her former boss an insurmountable lead, and were almost exactly enough to put the margin above the threshold for a state-paid recount.
* The news about the missing votes was withheld for days. Ramona Kitzinger, the Democrat on the Waukesha County Board of Canvassers, wasn't told about the discrepancy, even during the Brookfield canvass. She found out after the canvass results had been finalized, during the press conference Kathy Nickolaus convened to announce the new winner of the Supreme Court race.
* There's some indication that Waukesha irregularities may date back to 2004, the first election Kathy Nickolaus was responsible for. Good writeup (yes, it's dailykos, but the author provides links and sources for all her data).
* During this week's recall election, in spite of having far fewer votes to count, Waukesha County released only their smallest precinct (of eleven), then nothing until enough Milwaukee results had been reported to make it clear that the Waukesha results would give GOP incumbent Darling the win.

As I noted in the State Supreme Court thread, I think incompetence is a more likely explanation than Kathy Nickolaus turning out to be a genius at rigging elections. I do think the GAB is right to do a thorough investigation into Kathy Nickolaus' entire tenure as County Clerk, and even if she turns out to be merely incompetent, she should be barred from working any further elections.

A basic spreadsheet error (results were listed in the wrong columns) in Outgamie County means that Senator Cowles won his recall election by a smaller margin than originally thought, though this change still doesn't mean that election was especially close. The corrected results mean that Cowles wins with roughly 56% of the vote instead of roughly 60% (the change in Outgamie County results was a more startling 15-point shift).

We need better standards and training for our state's electoral officials.

From an analysis I read this morning, if 1100 votes had gone differently, the Democrats would have won. I don't see any sign of an overwhelming statement of the people's will in this; it's a razor thin win in a highly contentious season, and I think it says nothing about what's to come. Except of course that the Republicans still hold control in the state.

1100 votes where and for whom? The only race that close was the one in which Jessica King (D) beat Randy Hopper (R) by 1,250. A small swing in votes would have given the GOP another win.

Unless you are saying that if 1,100 people who voted for Olsen (R) would have instead voted for Clark (D). If that's the case, then it's more spin. I could even more easily say that "if" 626 people would have voted for Hopper instead of King, the GOP would have won 5-1.

I don't see how anyone can view this anything other than a decisive victory for the GOP. The Democrats (with great help from Organizing for America and the unions) threw everything they had into this (including throwing illegal BBQ parties http://www.jsonline.com/news/statepolitics/126558543.html) and failed in their stated objective, which was to retake control of the Senate.

MattDaddy wrote:

I don't see how anyone can view this anything other than a decisive victory for the GOP.

I don't see how anyone could view this as anything other than a loss for the Democrats and a big loss for the Republicans.

The Democrats said that the people really hated what the Republicans were doing and that they would overthrow the Republicans and grab a majority of the Senate. That was wrong, and I totally understand how that's a loss.

The Republicans said that they had a mandate from the people to make the changes they were making, and that the people of the state were behind them with those decisions. With that stance the a "decisive victory" has to be at least a loss of zero seats. Aka they were right that all the people that voted them in before were still happy with them.

As it is the Democrats wanted three seats, and they got two. You can't label losing two seats as a "decisive victory" when losing three seats would, by all accounts, be a "crushing defeat". When you make labels like that you just look out of touch. Right now if I'd have to guess what election results would lead to what buzzwords from you I'd go with something like this:

Lose 5 seats: Tie
Lose 4 seats: Minor Victory
Lose 3 seats: Victory
Lose 2 seats: Decisive Victory
Lose 1 seat: Enormous Victory
No change: Earth Shattering Victory
Gain 1 seat: Songs will be song of this Victory for thousands of years
Gain 2 seats: Divine Mandate

I think a more accurate breakdown would be something like the following:
Lose 5 seats: Scathing and Incredible Denouncement of the party platform.
Lose 4 seats: Enormous Defeat
Lose 3 seats: Decisive Defeat
Lose 2 seats: Slight Defeat
Lose 1 seat: Tie
No change: Victory
Gain 1 seat: Decisive Victory
Gain 2 seats: Enormous Victory

Getting repetitive ...

Edir: nm, Not worth it.

Kim Simac, running in the recall election against Jim Holperin this coming Tuesday, struggled a bit in this week's candidate forum.

In a forum hosted Tuesday by radio station WRJO in Eagle River - the only joint appearance by the candidates - Simac could not name a current bill in the Legislature she supported or opposed and struggled to come up with a legislative proposal that she would introduce.

The question was submitted by a citizen and asked by John Helgeson, news director for the radio station: "What specific legislation is moving through the Capitol right now that you look forward to, if elected, supporting or challenging?"

Simac responded: "I guess I would have to say that with all of the things that I've been looking at, I think you just stumped me . . . I can't name you a single one right now."

When Holperin was asked the same question, he mentioned adding tax incentives for businesses to come to rural Wisconsin, a tax credit for hospitality advertising and an initiative to apply the sales tax to Internet-based companies.

Don't really want to start a new thread for this, so I'll include it here:

WEAC Leads In Lobbying Spending

The statewide teachers union led in spending on lobbying state lawmakers even before this year's fight over collective bargaining.
All told, WEAC spent 12,364 hours lobbying, which averages to 17 hours a day every day for two years.

And here's the lineup of liberal-friendly organizations in the full GAB list (I only went as far as #50):

WEAC (#1)
AFSCME Council 11 (#14)
Wisconsin Association of School Boards Inc (#22)
Wisconsin Professional Police Association (#37)
Wisconsin League of Conservation Voters (#47)
Wisconsin State AFL-CIO (#48)
AFT - Wisconsin (#50)

I'm not a fan of the amount of money in lobbying (by any part of the political spectrum), but at least they're required to disclose it and there's some amount of transparency. I'm more concerned about the fact that third-party election money is not subject to disclosure or transparency requirements.

Why did you list out what you view as liberal-friendly, and how did you evaluate each organization in order to reach that conclusion?

It's a derail for this thread, so here's the top 50. If I'm being honest, my rule of thumb for that list was "would MattDaddy consider this a liberal group".

Wisconsin Education Association Council
Forest County Potawatomi Community
Wisconsin Insurance Alliance
Altria Client Services Inc
Wisconsin Medical Society
Wisconsin Hospital Association Inc (WHA)
Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce
Wisconsin Energy Corporation
Wisconsin Farm Bureau Federation
Wisconsin Counties Association
Wisconsin Petroleum Marketers & Convenience Store Association
Wisconsin Independent Businesses Inc
RAI Services Company (formerly Reynolds American Inc.)
AFSCME Council 11
League of Wisconsin Municipalities
Wisconsin Property Taxpayers Inc
Wisconsin Realtors Association
Cooperative Network Association
Rural Wisconsin Health Cooperative
Wisconsin Bankers Association
Wisconsin Builders Association
Wisconsin Association of School Boards Inc
State Bar of Wisconsin
Wisconsin Automobile & Truck Dealers Association Inc
Milwaukee County
Wisconsin Restaurant Association
Koch Companies Public Sector, LLC
AT&T Wisconsin
National Federation of Independent Business
City of Milwaukee
Northern States Power d/b/a Xcel Energy
Dairy Business Association
Wisconsin Public Service Corporation
Cottonwood Financial Ltd.
Wisconsin Transportation Builders Association
Wisconsin Association of Health Plans
Wisconsin Professional Police Association
Wisconsin Dental Association
Wellpoint Inc./Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield of Wisconsin
Madison Gas & Electric Company
MillerCoors LLC
United HealthCare Services Inc. (formerly UnitedHealth Group)
CenturyLink (formerly CenturyTel Service Group LLC)
Wisconsin Towns Association
Kwik Trip Inc
Marshfield Clinic
Wisconsin League of Conservation Voters (WLCV)
Wisconsin State AFL-CIO
Wisconsin Cable Communications Association
AFT - Wisconsin

If folks want to discuss lobbying in general (or for the state of Wisconsin), we should make a thread for it.

[Edit to add - looks like the sorted GAB spreadsheet I pulled the full list from has some orgs in a different order than what I pulled off the PDF (either that or I suck at counting tonight).]

No need to list to top 50, I read the link. I'm curious why you listed what you call liberal friendly? DO you consider the rest to be conservative friendly?

I'd give serious consideration to Forest County Potawatomi Community as liberal friendly based on their cozy history with former Governor Jim Doyle.

The Associated Press and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel have called both races for the Democratic incumbents.

District 12
Holperin (D) - 54%
Simac (R) - 46%

District 22
Wirch (D) - 58%
Steitz (R) - 42%

So earth-shattering victory then?

I'll be interested to see what the numbers were in these districts for last fall's gubernatorial election (as well as the recent state Supreme Court election), to get a better feel of what shifts may be happening, but my sense is still that we're seeing an increasingly polarized electorate, with the middle slightly tending Democrat - though that still seems very fluid to me and may well change at any point (they may also end up tuning out of the political realm entirely, in large numbers).

Madison.com's Twitter account for Political coverage[/url]]Revised from earlier: Of the 480,000+ ppl to vote in all 9 #wirecall elections, approx. 50.4% voted Dem, 49.6% voted GOP.

Six of the nine districts were traditionally lean-to-strong Republican ones, but that's still a pretty close split.

I'll try to track down more numbers later today, to ground the discussion.

So earth-shattering victory then?

For the Republicans. Stay tuned to learn why.

Robear wrote:
So earth-shattering victory then?

For the Republicans. Stay tuned to learn why.

They're still in control, so I call divine mandate.

MattDaddy wrote:
Robear wrote:
So earth-shattering victory then?

For the Republicans. Stay tuned to learn why.

They're still in control, so I call divine mandate.

Where does this go from here? I assume at this point the bill upon which the other Wisconsin thread was about is here to stay?

Act 10? Yeah, that stays in place. All of the really controversial stuff has already been passed. Until the next round of elections, the agenda will be on things that should have a level of bi-partisan support. That was going to be the case even before the recall elections.

2011 Wisconsin Act 10 (the collective bargaining bill) remains intact, which would be the case regardless of whether the Democrats had won every single recall election.

Governor Walker has been talking about bipartisanship this past week (since his party lost those two seats). However, he's been using that word sporadically throughout this process while pressing forward with a partisan agenda. It's too early to see whether he's serious about bipartisanship now.

It may be that having the GOP majority in the state Senate rest upon the shoulders of moderate Dale Shultz will be a moderating influence on further legislation - and really, that's all that could be hoped for even if Democrats had taken full control of the Senate.

It's worth remembering that the damage which has been done this year will take years if not decades of diligent effort to undo. That timeline wouldn't have been affected too much even if the Democrats had picked up no seats in the recalls (though it would have been a huge drag on momentum).

One person's damage is another's progress

The best analysis I've found so far of the Wisconsin recall results.

The most shocking fact, to me, is that Governor Walker carried all nine of the recall districts in the Fall of 2010.

These contests were fought on mostly GOP-friendly turf. The nine districts combined (six held by Republicans, three by Democrats) gave Republican Scott Walker 56% of the two-party vote in 2010, about three points higher than his statewide total, reflecting their overall GOP tilt. Only one of the nine was more Democratic than the state as whole based on the last governor’s race (the 32nd district held until last week by Republican Dan Kapanke).

Recall districts held by Republicans:
IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/mhDy8.png)

Recall districts held by Democrats:
IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/j9m7c.png)

There's been some discussion by both sides about possibly doing another round of legislative recall races as part of the effort to recall Governor Walker. In a pre-emptive move, state Senator Mary Lazich proposed a bill late last week that would have immediately put new districts into place for state Senate offices, while postponing the new Assembly districts until next November (when they would normally be scheduled to take effect).

Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel[/url]]In what some call a brazen, unprecedented power play, a key Republican wants quick passage of a bill that would immediately implement new districts in the state Senate while keeping current districts in the Assembly, giving the GOP a better chance at retaining control of both houses.

A bill by Sen. Mary Lazich (R-New Berlin), chairwoman of the Senate's elections committee, would put into effect new districts for senators in less than two weeks, instead of November 2012 as current law requires. Republicans who control both houses approved new lines this summer that favor Republicans, and putting them into place before any recall elections would help them in the Senate.

Keeping in place the current Assembly maps would ensure special elections aren't required early next year to fill 10 seats where no incumbent lives under the new districts. Republicans want to avoid holding special elections because it would give Democrats a chance at capturing some of those seats before the regular November 2012 elections.

Given that the GOP was able to ram through the redistricting efforts earlier this year, it should have been a slam dunk. State Senator Dale Schultz (R-Richland Center) brought the bill to a dead stop when he announced that he would vote against it, if the bill came to the floor. You might remember Senator Schultz from his lone dissenting GOP vote in the Senate against 2011 Wisconsin Act 10, being tricked into missing his opportunity to amend 2011 Wisconsin Act 10 back in February, or hopes that Senator Schultz would be a critical moderating influence on the most radical of Governor Walker's legislative agenda.

After Senator Schultz's announcement, voting on the bill was postponed indefinitely. Since the legislature has now adjourned until January, it seems likely that any additional Senate recalls will proceed with the current districts in place. Also, Senator Schultz's office was egged. No word yet on how many millions of dollars in damage the eggs did, though.

[I was on the fence about starting a new thread for this, but since there's nothing concrete I decided this was the best home for it - for now.]

Scott Fitzgerald came forward yesterday with complaints about the how much time was being allowed to recall him.

The complaint to the Government Accountability Board focuses on a wrinkle in state law that allows those collecting signatures to start the 60-day clock — the maximum time they are allowed to collect — a day after they register with GAB.

"Only to a Madison lawyer does 61 days or 64 days equal 60 days," said Andrew Welhouse, Fitzgerald's spokesman. "If the 60-day clock starts the day after the petition is filed, then why do the signatures collected on day zero count?"

The volunteers for the effort to recall Scott Fitzgerald just rendered that moot by announcing that they've hit the threshold to trigger a recall.

To put this into perspective, here's Scott Fitzgerald's electoral history for state Senate district 13:

He first won in 1994 with a margin of 36.2%.
He won in 1998 with a margin of 36.5%.
He won in 2002 with a margin of 37.5%.
He ran unopposed in 2006.
He won re-election in 2010 with a margin of 38.4%.

The fact that the effort to recall him even came close to the threshold is huge.

[Edit to add link.]

The volunteers for #RecallFitz just filed with the GAB. 20,600 signatures - a whopping 126% of the required threshold.

Important to note that this was done with zero support from the Democratic party, in part because they thought there was no chance the volunteers would gather enough signatures.