Wisconsin recall elections will be on July 12
As the signature filing phase of the Wisconsin campaign draws to a close, at Daily Kos we're submitting our thank you notes to the thousands of volunteers who gathered recall petition signatures against Republican state Senators.
You can view them all, in an 8.4 MB file, here. It's an enormous, powerful document.
Also, it now looks as though all of the recall elections, except the one against Republican Robert Cowles, will take place on July 12. Democrats had been trying to hold the elections against the two most vulnerable Republican state Senators, Dan Kapanke and Randy Hopper, before the others:
A Dane County judge today approved the Government Accountability Board's plan for certifying recall elections, a move that could allow the agency to hold all eight July 12.
Judge John Markson turned back a Dem motion [PDF] to require the agency to certify the recalls against Randy Hopper and Dan Kapanke ahead of the others since they had been turned in first.
Markson said the GAB met its burden to show good cause to extend the recall certification deadlines, saying the weight of dealing with eight recall petitions at the same time "makes it a very, very difficult, if not impossible thing to achieve within the statutory deadline."
Under the proposed order, the GAB would meet May 23 to consider the petitions filed against Sens. Dan Kapanke, R-LaCrosse, Randy Hopper, R-Oshkosh, and Luther Olsen, R-Ripon. The board would hold a second meeting May 31 to consider the petitions filed against Sens. Sheila Harsdorf, R-River Falls, Dave Hansen, D-Green Bay, Alberta Darling, R-River Hills, Bob Wirch, D-Kenosha, and Jim Holperin, D-Cononver.
The filings of sufficiency or insufficiency for each recall petition would be filed between May 31 and June 3, which would clear the way for all of them to be held July 12, pending any legal challenges of the board's findings.
A ninth recall petition filed Thursday against Sen. Robert Cowles, R-Green Bay, was not considered under the order today and a potential election would likely be held after July 12, GAB Director Kevin Kennedy said.
So now, the next question is how many of the recall petitions will be deemed sufficient to trigger a recall election. My bet is that all nine elections will be held, despite some rather serious irregularities in the petitions filed by Republicans. Irregularities like dead lawmakers signing petitions:
Bill Pocan - father of state Rep. Mark Pocan - may have died long ago.
But that doesn't mean he can't sign the recall petition against state Sen. Bob Wirch of Kenosha.
Just check page 362 of the Wirch recall petition, and you will find the signature and address for Bill Pocan, also the father of Milwaukee County Judge William Pocan. The petition says Bill Pocan penned his support of the recall effort on March 3.
Wirch is one of 14 Democrats who left the state to block a vote on Gov. Scott Walker’s budget-repair bill. He is one of at least three Dems and six Republicans targeted for recalls.
Perhaps that signature was written by someone trying to punk the signature gatherers, but it still suggests Republicans did not take great care in reviewing their petitions before filing them. As such, maybe one or two of the recall petitions against Democrats will be thrown out after all.