Yup, laws they don't like that can't be simply ignored (like our transparency laws) or violated outright are simply being changed by the Republican Trifecta in Wisconsin.
Senate Joint Resolution 24 would limit our ability to recall elected officials to just 2 reasons:
--- charged with a crime punishable by imprisonment of one year or more
or
--- finding of probable cause of violation of the state code of ethics has been made
So, unless they're charged with a SERIOUS crime or violated state ethics (which are rarely, if ever, enforced) they can't be recalled no matter what they've done. At all. Ever.
Of course, these just happen to be the same reasons Scott Walker shamelessly claimed were needed to recall him in 2011. It was a lie, but he was successful in convincing a majority of Wisconsinites that this was the primry reason not to recall him.
Now they're prepared to codify that lie into law.
The bill was introduced on April 18 and was referred to the Elections and Urban Affairs Committee. The GOP has majorities in both houses of the Legislature and will have no problems pushing this through.
Scott Walker himself was the beneficiary of a recall election that didn't involve any criminal actions or ethics violations - just a lot of pissed off voters angry about a golden parachute pension deal that the then Milwaukee County Executive, retirement-ready managers, and County Supervisors proposed (they included all County employees in the deal so it wouldn't be so obvious that the great big winners would be themselves). Walker approved of recalls then as he ran against the reclled incumbant - and won the election.
He "lost" his recall love when he and many Republican State Senators became the targets of recall when he angered Wisconsinites with his ram through of extremist legislation (including Act 10, his public employee union busting law) and budget. He proceeded to raise and spend tens of millions of dollars and ran against the whole concept of recalls unless criminal actions were involved (isn't that why we have court and prosecutors?). Money, running against the recall itself, and our GOP loving corporte media ensured his win (although he later claimed that it was his extremist actions which the voters approved in that election).
Unlike Indiana, which has a law enabling voters to remove unwanted legislation at the ballot box, here in Wisconsin we only have the ability to recall elected officials. Without that, we're left with nothing.
I'll be watching this closely although it's not appeared even once in our awful corporate media.
It ain't easy living in FitzWalkerStan.
PS: Personal request. I'm awfully computer stupid and just discovered that Windows Live Messenger, which I use a lot, is now insisting that I upgrade to Skype and won't sign in at all. Yuck. Does anyone have ny insight or work around? My cousin, still on an old computer using XP and the "old" version of Windows Messenger says hers works just fine. Thanks.