Scott Walker Recall Campaign Is On

A movie theater marquee in downtown Madison catches the Recall Scott Walker spirit.<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/_kristy_/5519069170/sizes/m/in/photostream/">_kristy_</a>/Flickr

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


The group United Wisconsin has announced it will launch a recall effort targeting Wisconsin Republican Gov. Scott Walker beginning next month.

United Wisconsin, a political action committee formed by grassroots organizers to recall Walker and Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch, says it will file papers on November 15 with Wisconsin’s Government Accountability Board to begin the recall effort. Organizers will have 60 days to collect 540,208 signatures to trigger a recall election, but they hope to gather 700,000—enough to withstand legal challenges by their opponents. In its release announcing the recall effort, United Wisconsin says it has already gathered more than 200,000 pledges from Wisconsinites saying they’d sign a Walker recall petition. The release describes the recall effort as a collaboration between United Wisconsin and “numerous other grassroots groups, political leaders of all stripes, seniors, educators, veterans, and religious leaders of all faiths.”

The idea for a Walker recall grew out of the massive protests that engulfed Madison, the state capital, this winter and spring in response to Walker’s anti-union budget repair bill. The bill curbed collective bargaining rights for most public-sector unions in Wisconsin, while making it harder for those unions to collect member dues and forcing them to re-certify each year. The overall effect has been to weaken organized labor’s influence in Wisconsin, a traditionally pro-union state where the first public-sector unions were formed. More than 100,000 people protested Walker’s bill and the Republicans in the Wisconsin legislature who supported it, occupying the rotunda of the state Capitol building and filling the streets surrounding the Capitol, an uprising that captured the nation’s attention for weeks. Walker ultimately prevailed, signing the bill into law in March; after surviving several legal challenges, the bill went into effect in June.

A Walker recall promises a political battle just as divisive as the one that unfolded this summer in Wisconsin. Targeted for their actions during the bitter debate over Walker’s repair bill, three Democrats and six Republicans in the Wisconsin state Senate faced recall challenges, with Democrats needing a net gain of three seats to flip the Senate majority. In the end, though, Democrats netted only two seats, and both sides claimed victory: GOPers for clinging to their majority, and Democrats for their two wins. Nonetheless, the failure to win back the majority appeared to drain some of the Democrats’ momentum as they eyed the biggest recall of them all: Scott Walker.

Now, Wisconsin progressives and Democrats must convince their supporters to gear up for one more recall battle in 2011. That’s a steep challenge: the memory of this summer’s spate of toxic ads and constant mud-slinging is no doubt still fresh in the minds of many. Throughout the summer, polls showed Wisconsinites split on the idea of challenging Walker, though a recent Democratic Party of Wisconsin poll found that independents supported recalling Walker, 52 percent to 36 percent. Is there enough anger left at Walker’s policies to mobilize against him? Or will that effort, like this summer’s elections, fall just short?

In a conference call with reporters, United Wisconsin officials stressed that the time was right to recall Walker. “I think the momentum is just as strong, if not stronger,” said United Wisconsin co-chair Kevin Straka. Straka and co-chair Ryan Lawler were, however, short on details about their get-out-the-vote strategy or messaging plans, a sign of the grassroots nature of this recall effort. The Democratic Party of Wisconsin will help sign up volunteers and raise money for the recall, but so far the campaign itself is looking like a truly bottom-up operation. 

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate