Since the crisis was artificial, the layoff threat was artificial too, of course. Those $1.8 billion in corporate tax cuts didn’t cause an immediate fiscal threat because the existing budget was essentially balanced; Walker was just using his bully pulpit to be, literally, a bully.

This whole mess has been Shock Doctrine 101. Either Walker was so stupid he thought he could do the whole con in six months, OR he knows he has a Koch sinecure to land in and doesn’t care if the whole world knows. Hard to say – Walker speaks like a person of less-than-moderate intelligence (I keep expecting him to start drooling; he’s that close), but with all the Repubs just flat out saying “we’re doing this to kill unions” (and so, Democratic party power), I now think they may just be that brazen.

Always comes down to stupid or evil. Looks 40/60 on this break.

That reminds me: Walker tried to illegally break the contracts of Milwaukee cops and replace them with Wackenhut rent-a-cops — except this got shot down right quick, so now because of him, Milwaukee is stuck paying for both real cops and rent-a-cops for awhile:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/vp/41917648#41917648

What are the rules on recalls? When can they be filed? how long does the state have to certify the recall petitions? how long between the certification and the actual election? does the new election have to occur on specific dates, like the second tuesday in November? Is the recall a separate action from the selection of a new senator? Are there primaries allowed or does the party apparatus select the nominees? How long would you expect the process to take?

thanks David –

been meaning to check WI. Voter Reg. Requirements – ah hah

Register on Election Day

Wisconsin election laws make it easy to register to vote, and you can even register to vote at your local polling place on the day of the election if you are not already registered.

Aside from registering on the day of the election, you can also register at:

* County Election Offices.

* Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) offices.

* Food stamps offices.

* Women, infants and children (WIC) benefits offices.

* Any office or agency that provides services for the disabled community.

* Medicaid offices

my bet on taking 4 Recall scalps just changed to 6

“Meanwhile, in Washington, no member of the White House press corps asked President Obama about the events in Wisconsin.”

Nothing says corporate control media like ignoring the fight for the Middle Class of the USA.

What would Obama say?

Obama actions always tell us how he feels, when he speak he lies a lot

Obama actions below:
1.Obama froze Fed Wages
2.Obama raise taxes on the poor
3. Obama is developing NAFTA type of deal with Korea

base on OBAMA actions one would come to the conclusion that he has a lot in common with Gov. Walker, he is no friend of middle class, unions, progressives.

There’s also the Stupid-Evil-Crazy Vortex. The theory behind this is shown by the differences between Michele Bachmann and Sarah Palin.

See, Palin is stupid and evil, but not smart enough to be truly crazy because she doesn’t have the intellectual curiosity required to cause the raging cognitive dissonance that is at the root of so much insanity. Bachmann, on the other hand, is quite smart and because of this she is smart enough to see where what she’s doing conflicts with her self-image as a moral person; however, since for various reasons — not least the desire to hang onto her dedicated and lucrative network of patrons — she cannot change her behaviors to match her self-image, she has to make gross departures from reality in order to soothe her conscience.

Bachmann is especially dangerous because she also has staying power beyond Palin’s, which is largely tied to how many aging rich Birchers still sprout wood at the sight of her.

rescinded layoff notices sent out to 1,500 state workers as a result of the bill passing

At least that’s a good thing.

Bachmann is especially dangerous because she also has staying power beyond Palin’s, which is largely tied to how many aging rich Birchers still sprout wood at the sight of her.

Don’t a lot of the same sprout wood at the site of Bachmann too?

The results of researching these very pertinent questions would make a wonderful MyFDL diary, if anyone is so inclined. I know that an officeholder has to be in office one year, in Wisconsin, in order to be recalled. But that’s about all I know.

Perhaps someone could put together a tutorial with those answers, which must be out there somewhere.

Start Fighting Back Directly!

Bocott all the companies that gave Walker money to destroy the American middle class, hurt teachers and firefighters.

One of those companies is the sinister I Robot.

Of course I Robot wants to destroy and replace workers and make Americans slaves. So that makes sense.

Boycott all these companies that want to hurt you and your family, including:

Johnson and Johnson,
Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance,
Eli Lilly
I Robot
Wal-Mart
Well Point
Boycotts were responsible for the success of the first American Revolution.

Time for the second.

Wisconsin is leading… We must do our part, too.

http://scottwalkerwatch.com/?page_id=979

I agree, definately stacked in the Dems favor.

Meanwhile, in Washington, no member of the White House press corps asked President Obama about the events in Wisconsin.

Really Just Crickets and that doG awful sound they making in the night…
BO has betrayed the Middle Class… Sure wish we had national recall solution for him… He doesn’t deserve nay respect at all from middle class America..

Did she beat Tarrell Clark that badly?

Rules on recalls vary by state. In WI they have to wait until the governor has been in office a year before he can be recalled. In Michigan, where there is a recall of the governor amping up, we can do it any time with 25% of those who voted signing the petition and we only have 90 days from the filing of the recall.

Koch brothers holdings, aside from oil –
Angel Soft toilet paper
Brawny paper towels
Dixie plates, bowls, napkins and cups
Mardi Gras napkins and towels
Quilted Northern toilet paper
Soft ‘n Gentle toilet paper
Sparkle napkins
Vanity fair napkins
Zee napkins
Georgia-Pa­­cific paper products and envelopes
All Georgia-Pa­­cific lumber and building products
Lycra
Stainmaste­­r Carpet

recall process and elections

* In order to force a recall election, signatures must be collected on recall petitions. The number of signatures that must be collected is 25% of the number of votes cast for the office of Governor of Wisconsin in the most most recent gubernatorial election in the district where the recall is sought
* Recall signatures are to be submitted to the Wisconsin Government Accountability Board, which must check the signatures to ensure that enough of them are valid to meet the minimum threshold for a recall election.
* Once the Government Accountability Board says that sufficient signatures have been submitted, the recall election must be conducted six weeks later.
* The name of the targeted incumbent automatically appears on the ballot for the special recall election, unless the incumbent specifically declines to have his or her name on the ballot.
* Candidates who wish to run for the seat that will become vacant if the recall succeeds can collect signatures to have their name appear on the special recall election ballot. As a result, the seat can be made vacant (if voters approve the recall), and re-filled, on the same day and in the same election.
* However, if more than one person from a political party files to run in the special recall election, the recall election date becomes a de facto primary, and the final election must be held 4 weeks later.

Some do, but Bachmann doesn’t rely on it the way Palin does.

Meanwhile, some good news:

Dane County is filing suit to block implementation of the ALEC-originated bogosity the WI GOP inflicted on the state:

The 19 Republican senators passed the bill after a special committee removed fiscal items from the measure which would have required at least one Democrat to be there. [Dane County Executive Kathleen] Falk argues the bill in its new form still could not pass without 20 senators present.

Here’s the filing: http://danedocs.countyofdane.com/webdocs/pdf/press/Legal_Filing.pdf

I guess the next test is up to the government union workers themselves. I wonder how many will remain in the unions and how many will opt out, now that they have the choice?

I would expect not too many will write a check for the union dues and I think the gov will no longer withhold any.

Of course no one in the WH Press Corps asked the Great Pretender about WI. Sherrod Brown told Cenk last night that all the middle class in WI (and elsewhere) had to do was wait for Obama with his “loud microphone.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMBudHIvaso

Cenk kept asking “where’s the President? Where’s his ‘mike?” Brown is firmly in the Veal Pen now. Why would the WH press corps bother to ask WI; clearly Koch won that round. Done deal for now. What else is there to say?

HEY !

“outing” ALEC is au courant these days . . .

I recall learning of ALEC right here in early 06 – another reason to join and support this incredible site and avail yourself to all the fabulous resources within

JOIN !

I was wading through the Wisconsin GAB Recall Handbook (PDF) but I think you found a much more succinct source and have it covered.

Why would anyone expect Obama to do anything to support workers in Wisconsin?

He’s going to do the same thing as Walker to the rest of the country.

Remember, this is all just cover for how for past governments (both D and R) have underfunded obligations to the public – in other words, the politicians have stolen even more trillions of dollars from the people and given them to their friends and owners.

This “they’re attacking our bargaining rights!” is just a distraction from the real theft.

p.s. In writing about Wisconsin, don’t forget to frame Scott Walker as a terrorist, a political suicide bomber who’s been promised by the Republican Allah – the wealthy – his due reward in the political afterlife.

We now have 335 members (see home page).

I think the GOP lawyers are telling the Governors that if they claim an emergency they can do whatever they want. I couldn’t understand why Walker was repeating what failed in Milwaukee (the Wackenhut mess). Now in Michigan they are trying for the Bush doctrine saying that in times of emergency the Governor or his appointee could take over towns, dismiss elected officials, etc. They are using unions as the cover because their base are well trained to hate them. The Rovian wealthy are going for a massive power grab that only includes destroying unions. In PA the Governor has given his appointee the right to use fracking for gas without responding to any other PA government employee. In Florida Scott wants to redo the court system. It is truly a Republican revolution in the states similar to the illegal Bush tactics done through his “Department of Justice”.

http://ballotpedia.org/wiki/index.php/Laws_governing_recall_in_Wisconsin

This is the 1st link provided by 4cdave above.

There are 8 Repub state senators targeted for recall. 2 forms must be filed before gathering signatures: 1) a Campaign Registration Statement and 2) a Statement of Intent to Circulate Recall Petition. Then there are 60 days to gather signatures.

So for how many of the 8 Repubs have the 2 forms been filed?

The narcissists have arrived on the political scene – Bachman, Palin, Walker…do anything, say anything, just put the camera on me – please don’t.

all

FDL has done some great reporting on this issue, but I’ve been out of town a few weeks. . . When did the Dems come back to Wis.?
Did any Dems vote for this bill?
Did any GOP members vote against it?
Are there going to be recalls on all the Republicans? or just the ones that voted for this bill?
How about the Dems. I heard some of the Dems will face a recall also for leaving the State. Is that true?

This seems to be the site for the recall effort. I can’t find an explicit statement, but it looks like all 8 Republican senators have had papers filed. It wouldn’t make much sense to have a meetup to gather signatures unless you had already filed the papers. Looks like the 60-day clock may have started ticking March 3.

Wiping coffee off monitor.

The only solution is a general nation wide strike.

They need to Strike and we need to Boycott! Words won’t work.

Yup, because it’s not just Wisconsin.

Bachmann is educated, cunning, calculated, and shrewd. Palin is all grease and no machinery.

Democrats have released two ads today that highlight Walker’s assault on workers’ rights.

I started getting emails a week ago from Democrats hoping to use this situation to fundraise for their reelection campaigns. As if the people they claim to be representing can afford to waste their money on these jackals’ campaigns. Clearly, they made the calculation that they can use this as a talking point in the next election cycle. So, the Republicans and the Democrats both get to act like heroes for their respective bases, while workers just get the effing shaft. Democrats suck. Shameless.

OK. If #30 and #28 are correct, then we’ll know something by 2 months from today. Of course, we’ll know something relevant on the morning of April 6.

Here’s an idea of the size of the problem:

In the governor’s race in November, more than 2,157,000 votes were cast. So, in order to implement a recall election of Scott Walker next year, somebody or somebodies are going to have to gather at least 539,000 signatures in 60 days, which is 9,000 valid signatures per day. And this is house to house fighting. It’s not like an election, where a large number of people come to each polling place on the same day within something like a 12 hour period. Then it’s necessary to find a candidate and win the recall election.

Since the crisis was artificial

They thought calling it a crisis would make everyone lay down and take the pain again. It’s a good thing people in and around Madison were paying attention and showed up when they did. Otherwise it would be a done deal by now.

Citizen Phoenix Woman:

Good catch Sister PW. In my first two visits to Madison, I listened to the executive of Milwaukee AFSCME wax elloquent about dealin with Governor Shitforbrains over several years and it’s clear that the reason that Wisconsin has remained fairly red since 1981 is the sellin’ out of the unions and the people of the state’s eastern cities by the Democratic Party. This has just been turned around in 3 weeks and the hollowed out shell of the Democratic Party that Obama left us after thowin Howard Dean under the bus in 2009 is now really honkin’ from the grassroots in areas that haven’t had a significant Democratic presense since the 1960′s.

I think that the future of politics in this state and, I think, goin’ forward into Michigan, Ohio, Indiana and as far as California may very well be determined by the results of the recalls here in the next few months. I don’t know but there is somethin happenin in this state that has stimulated hormones I haven’t experienced for years!

Feel lucky that you live in Minnesota and have a Governor who will turn the fascists into squealin’ little pigs if they try and take ‘im down over Minnesota Care or school funding and budget cuts…two of our kids teach in Twin Cities high schools and both of ‘em now understand what their old man taught ‘em about politics over these many years.

But it was the unions that got them their high pay and sweet bennies. Why wouldn’t they continue to stay in the union and pay union dues as seed money for more big contracts?

How would Dayton do as POTUS?

I don’t have a link handy, but from memory they announced that they had 15% of the signatures required within the first week. I expect another announcement on Monday. This will provide some on-going tracking.

What Scott Walker and his duplicitous Republican cohorts did on Wednesday was beyond despicable. After claiming vehemently that ending collective bargaining was necessary to balance the state budget Walker finally acknowledged that he had been lying all along, made patently clear that he cared nothing about the will or the welfare of the citizens of Wisconsin and forced his ignominious union busting legislation on the people of that state.

Walker and his gang of co-conspirators clearly deserve the condemnation and enmity of working class Americans everywhere but, at the same time, we have to remember that they’re not the core problem; they are just a symptom of an ominous, much more insidious affliction spreading in the country, the carefully coordinated, right-wing funded conspiracy to marginalize the middle class. One way they intend to accomplish this is by destroying it’s only significant power base, labor unions. It’s not a coincidence that almost identical legislation aimed at outlawing collective bargaining (along with a number of other rights long enjoyed by the middle class) has been introduced by number of tea-party supported governors; it’s a conspiracy and it’s succeeding at least partially because right-wing Republicans are using the tactic tyrants always use; find an easy mark and convince the poorly informed and the mentally lazy that the scapegoat is the cause of all their problems. In the 1920′s Germany it was the Jews; in contemporary America it’s social spending and public employees. Pit one group against another and steal their future and steal their freedom while they battle each other.

There is a war going on in America, a war for the soul of the country and my side, the side that believes an enlightened country has a moral obligation to the elderly, the sick, the poor and the defenseless, is in very real danger of losing. What is happening in Wisconsin is just the most public exhibition, and the Koch brothers are just the most public face, of a shameful connivance between the uber-wealthy and the politicians in their employ. Collective bargaining is not the only thing at stake here. The crypto-fascist oligarches have used their sham “grass roots” organizations with patriotic sounding names like Citizens United and Americans for Prosperity (how often do we pause and ask who are these “Citizens” who want special interest to anonymously pour unlimited funds into our elections and which “Americans” and whose “Prosperity” are they talking about) to raise money from the chronically gullible so they can fund their bought and paid for politicians. The result is the targeting of anything that hints at concern or compassion, heating subsidies, school lunches, family planning, social security, medical care and a host of other programs that define the moral compass of a nation and anything else, such as voting rights, that threatens the modern day Robber Barons’ strangle hold on American wealth and their ability to strip it from the economy with impunity.

In 2007, the top 1 percent of Americans, the “upper class” owned almost 43 percent of all privately held wealth and the next 19 percent controlled slightly over 50 percent. That meant that just 20 percent of the population possessed a staggering 93 percent of the countries wealth leaving only 7 percent for the bottom 80 percent of Americans, the greatest degree of wealth inequality since 1929. The numbers are worse today and they still want more. We, working Americans, have allowed this to happen and we’re still complicit it by falling for phoney Republican crises intended to keep us noticing what they ‘re doing.

When do we start to ask why the budget deficit only became a “crisis” after a Democratic president was elected and even then only after the Republicans engineered an obscene tax cut extension for the wealthy or why we can pay for two pointless and sometimes immoral wars rife with both domestic and foreign corruption but can’t afford to educate our children. Maybe we should wonder why we suddenly have a “Muslim extremist” problem when no credible law enforcement agency seems to believe that they exist in any greater numbers or in this country or represent any greater threat than any other fringe group. Perhaps we could ask why none of the plutocrats who plundered our countries wealth and drove our economy to the brink of a second Great Depression have been prosecuted and stop falling for the big lie that the poor are all “welfare queens” and the unemployed are just lazy.

In the end, perhaps we actually do owe Scott Walker a debt of gratitude. Through all his ignorant machinations and maneuvering, from the phoney Koch brother call to the midnight vote on an item that was not fiscal one moment but fiscal the next, he laid bare the Republican agenda. It is now there plainly displayed for us all to see and if we continue to fall for the egregious lies and keep blaming the straw men enemies, if we aren’t energized to fight for an equitable America, then we deserve the future we will get.

If they grind away, getting the same number of signatures every day for 60 days, they need 7/60 of the required signatures in each week. 7/60 = 11.67%.

This is no simple matter.

http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/03/30/1554305/meek-turns-in-voter-petitions.html

This is a possibly relevant story about Kendrick Meek, who was the unsuccessful Dem candidate for Senate in FL last year, losing to Marco Rubio and Charlie Crist. Meek reached the ballot by gathering signatures rather than paying the fee. He needed 112,476, but acquired them in “almost a year” according to the story.

FL has 3 times the population of WI.

Furthermore, 8 senators represent 8/33 of the membership of the WI Senate, or roughly 1/4. Assuming the senate districts are roughly the same size, the recallers will need about 1/4 of 539,000 valid signatures, or about 135,000 to implement recall elections for all 8, and they will need the signatures in 60 days.

Now, now…Scott Walker is open for business.

;>)

that’s downright frightening,
actually you are frightening ;)

Am not.

;>)

History repeats -

“We must close the union offices, take their money away and put the leaders in prison.We must reduce their salaries, and take away their right to strike” Adolf Hitler,1933.

Having worked in five petition drives, I can tell you that the big hurdle is that 25% valid signature threshold. That’s a lot of signatures. To be safe there’s only two ways to do it:

a) Have a significant effort dedicated to verifying signatures against voter rolls. (Most political ad firms or even the local registrar can sell you a list of registered voters.) One city in my area set it up so that each petition circulator could go onto the recall movement website and check the signatures they got against the voter rolls.

b) Collect a massive margin of extra signatures. If I knew I needed to hit 25% I’d be aiming for 40% as a minimum cushion.

Note: State rules, definitions, and court decision can be all over the place on whether or not a signature is valid or should be disqualified. Sometimes if you’re registered as Jane H. Hamsher but signed as Jane Hamsher you would be disqualified, even if the address is correct. Same for William Egnor vs. Bill Egnor. Other cases failure to include an apartment or unit number is enough. Or failure to include a city or zip code. Like I said, the rules vary and I’ve seen some tough court battles in nearby cities. We even had one petition rejected because the paper length was the wrong size. (I kid you not, 11 x 17 vs 8-1/2 x 14.)

Actually your figures are incorrect. The percentage figure applies to the number of votes cast in the district of the legislator who is being recalled. For example, if there were 100,000 votes cast in District X, then to recall thast district’s State Senator you would need to collect 25,000 valid signatures. (See my #49 for more details.)

ETA: Saw your updated figures @44. You are specifying 135,000 in each district, right?

My figures were not updated, they apply to 2 different situations.

For the recall of Scott Walker next year, something like 539,000 signatures will need to be gathered in 60 days.

For the recall of 8 senators, who together account for about 1/4 of the Wisconsin Senate, something like 1/4 of 539,000, or 135,000, will need to be gathered for all 8 combined, also in 60 days. That’s about 17,000 per senate district, in 60 days.