Scott Walker may hate recalls now that his a$$ is on the line, but there was a time when he loved them and supported using them to oust other politicians at times simply because of political disagreements according to Tom Barrett.
During this campaign, Walker and his supporters have been harshly critical of those who have sought to recall and remove the governor and his political allies. Though the Wisconsin Constitution is absolutely clear that the reasons for recall elections are to be defined by those who seek them—as opposed to the politicians who would like to restrict the scheduling of accountability votes—the Walker camp has claimed that the recall is an expensive and unnecessary political gambit.
Barrett challenged this spin with a suggestion that Walker is a recall hypocrite.
Referring to Walker during the debate, Barrett said: “He has signed recall petitions, it’s my understanding, against Senator Feingold, against Senator Kohl, not for criminal misbehavior, but because he disagreed with political decisions that were made.”
Walker did not respond immediately. But the next day the governor said, “I have no memory” of signing on for the recall of the Democratic senators when they were targeted in 1997 by anti-abortion groups.
http://www.thenation.com/...
Now we may never know if Scott Walker signed these recall petitions because, the old recall petitions have been destroyed. However…
there is no question that Scott Walker has spoken enthusiastically about the use of the recall power. Indeed, he attained his previous position as Milwaukee County executive in large part because of a recall initiative. And that initiative clearly delighted him.
Back when he was a state legislator, Walker was an enthusiastic proponent of recall elections—especially in Milwaukee County.
Walker got even more enthusiastic about recalls in 2002, when he became the favored candidate of the group seeking to remove Milwaukee County Executive Tom Ament. After Ament resigned, Walker was elected to replace him.
When he ran for governor in 2010, Walker talked up the 2002 recall drive as an exercise in democracy.
Here he is saying this:
Let me quote him:
You know the folks that were angry about this started a recall and they were told they needed to collect 73,000 signatures in sixty days. Well, not hundreds, not thousands, but tens of thousands of ordinary people did an extraordinary thing. They stood up and took their government back. In less than thirty days they collected more than 150,000 signatures. It was at that moment I realized the real emotion on display in my county wasn’t just about anger.
Life is just a big fat irony! Oh and Scott Walker is one hell of a hypocrite! But I am guessing you knew that already.