» GOP pushback comes up a hair short: Following challenges by the Democratic Party in Wisconsin, the state’s Government Accountability Board has ruled that 26 of the Nygren campaign’s recall petition signatures are invalid, and as that left Nygren with just 398 signatures, they kicked him out of the race. Nygren is pursuing legal options, and frankly we don’t expect this to be over — two signatures is such a slim margin, it seems obvious that every last signature is again going to get combed over. The GOP still has a candidate, an activist named David VanderLeest, but given his comparatively lackluster background, we imagine they’re pushing to get Nygren back.
Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Ann Walsh Bradley issued a statement late Saturday saying that fellow Justice David Prosser choked her and disputing claims that she attacked him first.“The facts are that I was demanding that he get out of my office and he put his hands around my neck in anger in a chokehold,” she said. “Those are the facts and you can try to spin those facts and try to make it sound like I ran up to him and threw my neck into his hands, but that’s only spin.” [read more]
Big news. Prosser says he won’t say anything until an investigation happens. This story has come to blows.
Details of the incident, investigated jointly by Wisconsin Public Radio and the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism, remain sketchy. The sources spoke on the condition that they not be named, citing a need to preserve professional relationships. [read more]
Today in things actually going too far in Wisconsin. Prosser was the guy who got re-elected to the court in an unusually high-profile election earlier this year.
(Source: pantslessprogressive)
Wisconsin Supreme Court allows union law to move forward: All we have is the news alert from AP, but we’ll keep you posted as we learn more.
» Big money for big trickery: As you may have heard, the Republican Party in Wisconsin is facing a grim reality — recall elections are looming, and there’s a pretty decent chance the outcomes will tilt legislative power towards the Democrats. The reason, broadly speaking, is the passion and anger towards the state GOP’s efforts to strip public union rights. As such, they’re is aiming to delay the elections to hope things have time to cool off. Their plan is unorthodox: running Republicans, as Democrats, against the Democratic opposition at the primary stage, thus forcing an extra election. Extra elections come with a cost to the state, though, and this is no different. Sort of hurts the whole cash-strapped, “gotta cut back, gotta strip these union rights” narrative, huh?
We’ve got tons of government workers in my district — tons. From La Crosse to Prairie du Chien and to Viroqua and to Ontario and to Hillsboro, you can go on and on and on. We have to overcome that. We gotta hope that they, kind of, are sleeping on July 12th — or whenever the (election) date is.Wisconsin State Sen. Dan Kapanke • Expressing fear that he might get recalled due to the fact that his district has a lot of public-sector union workers in it. A secret recording caught Kapanke saying this along with a few other things. He noted in the clip, taped last week at the Cedar Creek Golf Club in Onalaska, Wisc., that two other state senators were in serious danger of losing their seats, too, and offered up this harbinger: “If they gain control of the Senate, it might be over for us. Because redistricting will play a role, as you know, and we lose that power.” Well, that doesn’t sound optimistic, does it? (h/t ThinkProgress) source (via • follow)
Reader abandonedsandals sends along this note:
“Wisconsin board approves recalls against GOP, but not Dems” — I work part-time for one of the towns in SE Wisconsin, so I’ve been keeping an eye on this. I can tell you that there’s been efforts by those of us against Walker to screw up the petitions to recall the Democrats. Nothing formally organized, but we figure the more invalid signatures, the better it is for us. So for example, I actually live in Illinois, and the Kenosha area gets a lot of Illinois visitors (people who work up here like me, belong to organizations, and there are a lot of family members spread over the two states. You just get an Illinois resident to sign the petition — using their IL street address and a Wisconsin city & state. I’ve also heard at least one rumor of getting convicts to sign!
Like I mentioned, I never saw any organized effort to screw up the petitions, just a lot of very angry Anti-Walker people talking about good ways to do it. So I suspect there will be a lot of those names being thrown out.
(I’m old enough to remember Dick Tuck — so I love this.)
A fascinating footnote to our piece from earlier.
I can’t add much to what’s already been (and will be) ...
One of the perks of being an early employee...
Over the last 90 days, the Digg...
#FMMDI (at 30 Rockefeller Plaza)
Thanks. I guess my thoughts are as follows:
1. I think...
Don’t get your hopes up so quickly: Judge Maryann Sumi has already ruled twice that it couldn’t be implemented for procedural reasons, but they kept implementing it anyway. So the question is, what will Walker’s people do now?
Watch out, Walker: If a recall election were held today, you’d get booted faster than you can say “Gray Davis.” source
idroolinmysleep asks: Kathy Hochul's election reminds me...any prognostication on Wisconsin? Last I heard JoAnne Kloppenburg lost the recount but has a week to challenge it (http://www.superiortelegram.com/event/article/id/54128/). Will the Republicans go ahead and rule as if they have a mandate, or will they take the opposition's strength into consideration?
» SFB says: I think there’s a perfectly good reason to think that Wisconsin leaders will lead as if they have a mandate … and push it too far. Let me let you in on a little secret here … when any party in any venue thinks they have a “mandate,” especially on the national level, they screw it up and give the other party an in. Which makes me think Scott Walker will blow it this time, too. — Ernie @ SFB
Paul Ryan not running in Wisconsin: Guess we timed our last post somewhat poorly. We think he’s making a mistake by not trying for higher office.
Copyright 2009-2013 Ernie Smith • Ask us stuff! • E-mail us • Follow us on Twitter • Follow us on Facebook
