Unions under Attack...

[Lucky]

B-Fly is right, as usual. Ms. Lucky and I were talking about the Bullpen the other night, and I mentioned Brian's aunt and the tragedy which had befallen her and the family. The conversation drifted around to B-Fly's 98,000 posts, and I explained such a large number of posts was because he had to keep the rest of us honest, and be the voice of reason.

Recall elections suck, but regular elections suck pretty bad, too. So many elected positions are complicated to the point the average voter winds up making a decision based upon superficial factors. (But hey, I'm not bitter or anything.) But his point is a good one, that most people spend their time in office trying to get elected again. But you pretty much have to do that, as I have recently learned.

[Lucky]

I strongly disagree with this. Elected officials should always, ALWAYS, be serving only at the whim of those who voted them in. There are no specific grounds for recall in Wisconsin and Walker's horrendous performance, penchant for favoritism, and near across-the-board failure to deliver on any of his promises made him a strong candidate to be removed from office. Walker survived this because he outspent the other side 7-1. That's it.

Voters who find that their elected officials are unresponsive or incompetent should always, always have the option to recall.

These people are our servants, not our masters.

You captured the essence of why your argument is a bad one, most likely without meaning to do so. Elected officials serve at the will of the people. They shouldn't serve at the whim of the people. A whim is a capricious or eccentric and often sudden idea or turn of the mind. An official's term in office shouldn't be terminated because of a capricious or eccentric idea. There should be legitimate and valid reasons for removing an elected official from office. If it is necessary that it happen right way, then it should be by impeachment.

Allowing a recall election at any time and for any reason could completely shut down the system. Theoretically, every time someone is elected, his or her opponents could start the recall process. Even if it is completely unsuccessful, it would essentially paralyze the elected official since he would be running for office continually.

When a person is elected, that means the majority of the people have agreed to give that official two or four or six years to do a job. He should get the chance to do it. The only exception should be if he or she commits an impeachable offense.

I don't like Scott Walker, and I think he is an embarrassment to his State and to his Party, but I still oppose recall elections on principle.

[B-Fly]

Eldiablo, just think about the huge public cost of any election, add the fact that conservatives would jump at the chance to 'recall' any elected official(s) who support progressive social or economic legislation if this became the norm, and you're just asking for pure governmental chaos. Maybe you like the idea of chaos, but as Lucky effectively articulated, you can't operate a system where any and every elected official can be subjected to a full recall election on the whim of a dedicated and/or well-funded segment of the populace.

[cardboardbox]

Walker for VP!

[chancellor]

Some followup clarifications:

- After actual data started filtering in, Walker's margin of victory was almost dead nuts on where Marquette's Law School work predicted - looks like margin will be 7.4%, Marquette predicted 7.1%.
- In a classic Dewey moment, everyone who called the fourth Senate seat looks wrong. It's likely Walker will have a Dem Senate to face for about five months.
- By all accounts and information I have, the range of spending estimated is $62-67 million. Direct spending by candidates was overwhelmingly in favor of Walker (roughly $30 MM to $5 MM), but outside spending slightly favored Barrett (roughly $17 MM to $13 MM). Those numbers are strictly estimates at this point, but at that, it appears Barrett was outspent about 2:1 factoring in outside spending.
- The number of potential cross-over voters - those who'd vote for Walker and Obama if the governor's race and presidential race were at the same time - looks to run between 10-13%. So, as of now, Obama holds a much narrower lead in Wisconsin than he had in '08, but still statistically significant in his favor.
- The highly unofficial "I'd like to hit that" vote was about 2%. Specifically, the GOP Lt. Governor (Rebecca Kleefisch) garnered more votes than the GOP governor did. For those interested as to why, feel free to google her pic.

[nots]

According to the letter of the law, you are incorrect. If you feel this way, you or Fly, you should petition to change the law. As it stands right now in the majority of states in the union, committing and impeachable offense is NOT the only grounds for a recall. I feel that Walker's embarrassing term as governor, fraught with favoritism and culminating on a likely federal corruption investigation, certainly passes a rational standard for a recall. Honestly, if you think there are not "legitimate and valid reasons" for removing Walker, I'd say that you've not been paying close enough attention.

With all due respect: the majority of Wisconsin voters have now disagreed with you--twice.
I do think the corruption charge possibility bears watching.

[B-Fly]

According to the letter of the law, you are incorrect. If you feel this way, you or Fly, you should petition to change the law. As it stands right now in the majority of states in the union, committing and impeachable offense is NOT the only grounds for a recall. I feel that Walker's embarrassing term as governor, fraught with favoritism and culminating on a likely federal corruption investigation, certainly passes a rational standard for a recall. Honestly, if you think there are not "legitimate and valid reasons" for removing Walker, I'd say that you've not been paying close enough attention.

Yes, absolutely, the law in these states permits recall elections. And the law permitted the impeachment of Clinton, and the rules of the Senate absolutely permitted the abuse of the filibuster. There are some legal loopholes or even deliberate remedies that I believe, in practice, can and/or do diminish the system as a whole and should be abolished. Among those for me are recall elections, the filibuster, and public election of judges. I'd get rid of those tools or practices if I could.

[Lucky]

Hey, I can be opposed to the idea of a recall election for no reason without having to get out and petition to change the law in Wisconsin. Don't be silly.

And it seems you're not paying close enough attention. I didn't say there weren't legitimate and valid reasons for removing Walker. I said that recall shouldn't be a capricious or eccentric idea held by a portion of the people, and that if an elected official has misbehaved badly enough, impeachment should be the proper procedure. In many states, such as my own, that requires high crimes and misdemeanors, or gross misconduct in office. Differences of opinion don't constitute gross misconduct.

If Walker broke the law, he'll be indicted. If he didn't, he'll answer to the voters in the regularly scheduled election. That's the way it should work.

One of the difficult things about believing in a constitution-based democracy is that you have to believe in the core concepts even if they appear to work against you in the short run.

[senorsheep]

Yes, absolutely, the law in these states permits recall elections. And the law permitted the impeachment of Clinton, and the rules of the Senate absolutely permitted the abuse of the filibuster. There are some legal loopholes or even deliberate remedies that I believe, in practice, can and/or do diminish the system as a whole and should be abolished. Among those for me are recall elections, the filibuster, and public election of judges. I'd get rid of those tools or practices if I could.

Agree on all three, and I'd add gerrymandering to the list of bad political mechanisms that should be killed. I hate safe seats where extremists on either side can say or do any nonsensical thing they please to pander to ideologically-narrow homogeneous constituencies with no electoral repurcussions. I think we're all better served when politicians must appeal to wider spectrum of public opinion for survival.

Edit to add: I already know your answer to my gerrymandering comment, and I don't think that one ostensible benefit outweighs all the bad on the other side of the scale.

[heyelander]

I liked Wyatt Cynac's line on the Daily show last night... commenting on the requirement of only 25% of voters to sign a petition to start a recall... "Why not just have the recall petitions right outside the voting booth and get people to sign them then..."

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Madison Men - Wisconsin Recall
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog The Daily Show on Facebook

[senorsheep]

I liked Wyatt Cynac's line on the Daily show last night... commenting on the requirement of only 25% of voters to sign a petition to start a recall... "Why not just have the recall petitions right outside the voting booth and get people to sign them then..."

Now, if you raised the bar to 50%, then I think you'd have something, because then you'd need some voters on the winning side to say "Wow, I even voted for this guy, and I can see that he obviously needs to go." Maybe that's the better answer - preserve the mechanism for when it is truly necessary, but restrict it such that it will only be used when it really should be. That's kind out how Colorado's citizen ballot initiative process worked out - after it was implemented, we realized that the percentage of required signatires was set so low that it was being manipulated by the wrong people for the wrong reasons. We raised the signature requirement, and a lot of the dicey shenanigans went away.

[B-Fly]

Edit to add: I already know your answer to my gerrymandering comment, and I don't think that one ostensible benefit outweighs all the bad on the other side of the scale.

Then we can basically let it go. I agree that gerrymandering can become extremely problematic in practice, but given the nature of our country and its diversity, I do think there should be a critical mass of minority-majority congressional districts and that it is okay to give that some consideration when drawing congressional districts, in part because the lines have to be drawn somewhere and you can never fully erase the biases that were built into the status quo.

[Bernie Brewer]

Sorry, Bernie, but you were so far off on the funding of the previous recall races* that I'm not prepared to accept your numbers for now.

*(Claim regarding union expenditures.)

http://www.jsonline.com/news/statepo...157906265.html

From JSOnline article:

The candidates and outside groups spent $80 million or more in the governor's recall race, more than doubling the previous record, according to estimates released Thursday.

Counting the $44 million dropped on Senate recalls last summer and the additional money spent on the four Senate recall races and lieutenant governor's recall contest this week, $125 million to $130 million was spent the past year on recalls, says the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign.

The Madison group, which tracks campaign spending, estimates that when final reports are made to state election officials, they will show about $80 million has been spent on behalf of both candidates in the governor's race. That would more than double the $37.4 million record set in the 2010 governor's race between the same candidates.

According to Democracy Campaign Executive Director Mike McCabe, campaigns and special interests on both sides engaged in "something akin to a nuclear arms race" to round up money to spend on advertisements targeting a minute percentage of undecided voters.

Exit polls from CNN show 86% of voters had made up their mind over a month before the election.

Lucky, I'll accept your apology impugning my character on this board.

With more than a year's head start, the campaign for successful incumbent Gov. Scott Walker spent over $47 million, according to McCabe. Losing Democratic challenger, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, spent $19 million.

Many Barrett supporters blame his 53% to 46% defeat on the $28 million gap.

Walker survived this because he outspent the other side 7-1. That's it.

Um wrong! This addresses the Dem talking point about being out spent 7-1. It's still a slightly less than 3-1 margin, but Walker had almost year longer to fund raise than Barrett. The Unions pumped significant cash into Kathleen Falk's campaign and actually asked Barrett to stay out of the primary race. Barrett raised a lot less than Falk, but still beat her, proving money isn't everything.

There are no specific grounds for recall in Wisconsin and Walker's horrendous performance, penchant for favoritism, and near across-the-board failure to deliver on any of his promises made him a strong candidate to be removed from office.

I don't like Scott Walker, and I think he is an embarrassment to his State and to his Party, but I still oppose recall elections on principle.

Lastly, in reading through this thread, I'm confused by these remarks. While there is a sizable faction in the state that might agree with ELDs comments (as evidenced by the slew of death threats Walker received the morning after) the majority of voters seem to think Walker has either done an adequate job, not had enough time to appropriately judge his performance or that the alternative offered no better solutions. If you followed this recall closely, you would have noticed that Barrett didn't support rolling back to pre-Walker collective bargaining rights and, frankly, had a difficult time identifying anything meaningful that he would do differently from Walker, expect firing the "Deer Czar" that Walker hired to study the deer population in Wisconsin. Yawn. As for ELDs comments, I think many Coservatives could easily say the same about our sitting President, who by the way has had a longer chance to make changes. Obama backers typically say he shouldn't be held accountable for Bush caused issues. While I agree, why does it not make sense that Walker shouldn't be held accountable for his predecessors issues. In many cases, Doyle kicked the can down the road for the new Governor.

As for Walker being an embarrassment to his state and party, this is simply your perception. I hasten to add your perception might be heavily influenced by the simple facts that you being not a resident of the state and you identify more with the other party.

[Lucky]

As for Walker being an embarrassment to his state and party, this is simply your perception. I hasten to add your perception might be heavily influenced by the simple facts that you being not a resident of the state and you identify more with the other party.

I'll offer that apology, but you were still inaccurate in your previous union-bashing.

As for Walker, yes, that is my perception of him. It is also my perception that had he lost, he would have been jettisoned in a heartbeat.

Of course, perceptions and opinions are pretty much what we have here. And I'm entitled to that opinion whether I live in Wisconsin or not. It may even be that I have a more objective view of him because I am not a resident*. The way you can tell is it my opinion is by use of the words "I think". And you may apologize now for belittling my perceptions.

The point of my post, though, which you may have missed, was that whether or not Walker is a d-bag (upon which reasonable men could differ), that's not a justification for a recall election. He should have his term to do the job he was elected to do. Then, if he seeks re-election, the voters could decide at that point whether to give him another term. Not liking him, or disagreeing vehemently with his policies, should not in my opinion be grounds for removal for office.

[Coincidentally, the political science majors at my college each had to pick a state for the 1976 elections, and learn as much as humanly possible, culminating in projecting every race (except purely local things like city council, mayor of small towns, etc.) My state was Wisconsin. A+]

[Bernie Brewer]

I'll offer that apology, but you were still inaccurate in your previous union-bashing.

Since you’re a Judge, I'll stipulate to unintended inaccuracies in my previous "union bashing” comment, although union bashing wasn't my intent. My intent was the disgust I felt about the money that flowed into that election. And that trend was nothing compared to this recall.

Now for union bashing: It is my opinion that unions were important 25-75 years ago. However, it is also my opinion that, with the exception of a select few unions (teachers unions and emergency service provider unions) they have outlived much of their relevance and have become the type of corrupt corporate bloodsuckers that the left likes to frag the right about.

As for Walker, yes, that is my perception of him. It is also my perception that had he lost, he would have been jettisoned in a heartbeat.

I suspect you're right, neither national party wants to be tied too closely to an epic loss and unless there is significant previous investment in the loser, they are quick to move on to the new flavor of the month. This is especially true for this recall, which was very toxic.

I know it was discussed in this thread, but pundits in Wisconsin and nationally speculated that was exactly why Obama never visited the state in support of Barrett. He saw the writing on the wall and wanted to keep his hands clean. He feared it would tarnish his coat tails in other elections. It is worth noting that Biden did visit Wisconsin, as did Bill Clinton, in support of Barrett. Additionally, Obama did “offer his support” by way of a tweet on the day before the election.

Of course, perceptions and opinions are pretty much what we have here. And I'm entitled to that opinion whether I live in Wisconsin or not. It may even be that I have a more objective view of him because I am not a resident*. The way you can tell is it my opinion is by use of the words "I think".

Just to be clear and I know you know this, I DO NOT live in Wisconsin and haven’t lived there in 35 years. So I, too, can look objectively as an outsider, but have access to insiders. Several of my relatives and family friends are/were teachers in Wisconsin. Some of those people are supportive of Walker, understand and accept the rational of the limiting collective bargaining rights and budget balancing tactics, were not supportive of the recall and would identify themselves as evangelical conservatives. Of course, some were and remain unsupportive of Walker, supported the recall, protested in Madison, were adamant about demanding the roll back to pre-Walker collective bargaining and self-identify as are liberals, some are evangelicals. A few are like many Americans these days in that they like to pick their issues à la carte as they are affected personally.

One thing we can agree on is that we all have the right to form our own opinions, whether they are informed or not, educated or not and crazy or not. And, we are also allowed to challenge others opinions, hopefully respectfully but these days that is probably too much for which to hope.

And you may apologize now for belittling my perceptions .

If you truly felt I belittled your perception, then I do apologize. I wasn't attempting to belittle your perception as much as point out my complete lack of understanding in how you and ElD arrived at your perceptions/opinions. They appeared to me to be strongly held beliefs and partisan. I guess I didn't articulate my question very well.


BTW, In fourth grade I made a paper mache volcano and received an A, but that doesn’t make me a volcanologist. I kid, I kid