Forum Post: The POWER we have - are we going to use it? or lose it?

From John Nichols - The Nation - The Power of Recalls in Wisconsin

With Wis­con­sin re­call elec­tions loom­ing against four Re­pub­li­can state Sen­a­tors -- as well as Gov­er­nor Scott Walker and Lieu­tenant Gov­er­nor Re­becca Kleefisch -- the state's pol­i­tics was thrown for an­other loop Fri­day when a tar­geted sen­a­tor up and quit.

State Sen­a­tor Pam Gal­loway, a Tea Party fa­vorite and one of Walker's stead­i­est back­ers in the leg­is­la­ture, an­nounced her im­me­di­ate res­ig­na­tion from the leg­is­la­ture and her de­ci­sion not to con­test the re­call elec­tion.
The move had dra­matic reper­cus­sions:
Re­pub­li­cans have lost the com­plete con­trol of state gov­ern­ment that al­lowed the gov­er­nor to ad­vance an aus­ter­ity agenda that was de­fined by at­tacks on unions and deep cuts in pub­lic ed­u­ca­tion and pub­lic ser­vices fund­ing -- along with the harsh­est Voter ID law in the na­tion, a rigidly par­ti­san re­dis­trict­ing of leg­isla­tive dis­tricts and what crit­ics com­plain has been a bat­ter­ing of the state's open-gov­ern­ment tra­di­tion.
State Sen­ate Ma­jor­ity Leader Jeff Fitzger­ald, a Walker ally who is tar­geted for re­call, has lost his po­si­tion as the dom­i­nant player in the leg­is­la­ture. He now must enter into a power-shar­ing agree­ment with Mi­nor­ity Leader Mark Miller, a pro­gres­sive De­moc­rats who led a his­toric walk­out by his cau­cus dur­ing last year's strug­gle over Walker's labor law changes. Com­mit­tee as­sign­ments will be re­done to re­flect what is now a 16-16 split in the Sen­ate.
Gov­er­nor Walker, who has threat­ened to call spe­cial ses­sions of the leg­is­la­ture to deal with pet pro­jects, will now only be able to do so if he can work with the De­moc­rats -- some­thing he has not done up to this point.
If, as ex­pected, the fed­eral courts re­ject the state's re­dis­trict­ing plan, it could be sent back to a leg­is­la­ture where De­moc­rats can now play a crit­i­cal role in draw­ing the maps. That could re­sult in a sig­nif­i­cant up­turn in their for­tunes going into this fall's elec­tions.
Re­pub­li­cans have lost their pre­mier can­di­date in one of four state Sen­ate re­call elec­tions that are now sched­uled for May 8 pri­maries and a June 5 elec­tion. Gal­loway had raised major money and or­ga­nized a cam­paign of con­se­quence be­fore an­nounc­ing that fam­ily health con­cerns had led her to exit the leg­is­la­ture. Now, De­mo­c­rat Donna Sei­del, a pop­u­lar for­mer county of­fi­cial in the Wausau-area dis­trict and the as­sis­tant mi­nor­ity leader in the state As­sem­bly, emerges as a clear fron­trun­ner for a seat that -- if she wins -- would tip the Sen­ate to full De­mo­c­ra­tic con­trol.
All of these changes were made pos­si­ble by the re­call power, which al­lows cit­i­zens to pe­ti­tion for new elec­tions. This old pro­gres­sive tool of ac­count­abil­ity was used last sum­mer to force a num­ber of Re­pub­li­can sen­a­tors who sup­ported the Walker agenda to de­fend their seats.
Going into last sum­mer's re­call votes, Re­pub­li­cans held a 19-14 ad­van­tage in the Sen­ate. Two Re­pub­li­cans were de­feated, leav­ing the GOP with a nar­row 17-16 ad­van­tage -- and giv­ing mod­er­ate Re­pub­li­can Sen­a­tor Dale Schultz the power to tem­per his party's ex­cesses. Now, with Gal­loway's exit, the cham­ber goes to the 16-16 split.
After the next round of re­calls, it is pos­si­ble that De­moc­rats could end up with full con­trol of the Sen­ate, po­ten­tially by a mar­gin of up to 19-14 -- or, if Fitzger­ald is de­feated by up­start chal­lenger Lori Com­pas, 20-13
Ad­di­tion­ally, a new De­mo­c­ra­tic Sen­ate could sit with a new De­mo­c­ra­tic gov­er­nor, as Walker's re­call is now all but cer­tain to take place on the same day as the sen­a­tors.
What has hap­pened is re­mark­able. What could hap­pen is his­toric. And the peo­ple, using the re­call power af­forded them by pro­gres­sive re­form­ers of a cen­tury ago, are mak­ing it hap­pen.

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