It's simple: we win the recall elections, elected officials will start to take us seriously. We lose those elections, and they won't. Please, chip in $5 on Orange to Blue to make sure that we win.
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This truly is going to be recall summer.
The Wisconsin Government Accountability Board has rejected most challenges to the recall petitions filed against Republican state Senators Dan Kapanke, Randy Hopper and Luther Olsen. This means that those three recall elections will take place on July 12, as previously assumed:
The Wisconsin board that oversees elections has rejected most challenges to recall efforts targeting three Republican state senators.
The Government Accountability Board's action on Monday clears the way for recall elections on all three on July 12.
The recalls target state Sens. Dan Kapanke of La Crosse, Randy Hopper of Fond du Lac and Luther Olsen of Ripon.
The GAB will meet on Tuesday, May 31, to discuss the challenges to the other six recall petitions, three of which were filed against Republican state Senators and three of which were filed against Democrats.
This is making Scott Walker nervous. Over the weekend, as Wisconsin Republicans held a much-publicized straw poll on the GOP nominee to run for the open seat created by U.S. Senator Herb Kohl's retirement, Walker told them to focus on the recalls instead:
Walker, speaking to about 1,000 Republicans at a Wisconsin Dells resort, said the only thing that could stop the GOP's momentum in the state are the recall elections.
"For the next two months, you shouldn't think about any United States Senate seat, you should think about protecting six brave senators and picking up three others," Walker said.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again. The only way the new protest movements against austerity and cuts to workers' rights will be taken seriously is if it starts removing elected officials from office. If the movement fails to do that, then elected officials and other powers that be just won't care. And why should they?
I've placed the Democratic challengers against Kapanke, Hopper and Olsen at the top of the Orange to Blue page. Please, chip in $5, and let's make sure that our nascent uprising isn't all for naught.