By M.D. Kittle | Wisconsin Reporter

MADISON — Perhaps Ginny Dankmeyer could be forgiven for feeling like she’s hit an election wall.

On Tuesday, the La Crosse County clerk was in the middle of administering her sixth election of the year — the primary for the 95th Assembly District seat. That one’s a vacancy, left empty in August when then-state Rep. Jennifer Shilling, a Democrat, defeated Republican incumbent Sen. Dan Kapanke in the 32nd Senate District recall election.

Dankmeyer was on election No. 5 then, following primaries, a Supreme Court election and more.

“I think I know everything I need to know about elections,” the veteran clerk told Wisconsin Reporter on Tuesday. “I’m schooled in elections.”

Dankmeyer may have to add another special election to her list, if a campaign to recall Gov. Scott Walker comes to pass.

The way organizers from United Wisconsin talk, the initiative will have the numbers when needed.
But if and when the statewide recall election shakes out, taxpayers in places like La Crosse County could be looking at a bill of millions to cover the cost of Wisconsin’s long-standing form of direct democracy.

‘Going with momentum’

United Wisconsin, a political action committee that bills itself as a nonpartisan grassroots organization, asserts it has the commitments of more than 200,000 “concerned citizens” who have signed a pledge to recall Walker. Recalling the  governor and Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch is the only “mission” mentioned on the organization’s website.

Pledges aren’t signatures, though, and the campaign will need 540,208 valid signatures for registered voters, or a quarter of the 2.1 million votes cast in November’s governor’s race, to trigger a recall election.

United Wisconsin leaders assert the petition drive will begin Nov. 15, and they will deliver the required signatures within the 60 days proscribed by state election law.

Ryan Lawler, co-chairman of United Wisconsin, the “acknowledged” leader of the recall campaign, told reporters during a news conference Tuesday afternoon that the petition drive will be challenging, but the coalition of Democrats, union supporters, and community and religious groups “is going with the momentum.”

That confidence, Lawler said, springs from the protest movement that grew out of opposition to Walker’s and the GOP-controlled Legislature’s budget-repair bill and its shelling of state public-sector collective bargaining.

“ … We came together in March and April around protesting and demonstrating against the will of this governor,” Lawler said, pointing to a head of state that he described as a corporate “enabler” who has “failed” the people of Wisconsin.

Walker spokesman Cullen Werwie referred questions on the “campaign-related” announcement to the Republican Party of Wisconsin.

The party, in effect, said bring it on.

“We welcome and encourage a comparison between the positive results we’re seeing around the state and the failed policies of the past favored by those seeking a recall,” Stephan Thompson, executive director of the Wisconsin Republicans, said in a statement.

Mike Tate, chairman of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, did not return requests for comment from Wisconsin Reporter, but in a statement he called the broader announcement of the recall campaign “perfect timing.”

“On the day that Wisconsin is learning of the imminent recall of radical Gov. Scott Walker, his willing crony (state Rep.) Jeff Fitzgerald (R-Horicon), has inserted himself in that storyline,” Tate said, referring to Fitzgerald’s official announcement he is entering the campaign for the Wisconsin U.S. Senate seat being vacated by veteran Democratic U.S. Sen. Herb Kohl.

Recall campaign balk?

But the timing was anything but perfect, according to one political observer.

Tate originally broke the recall plan Monday on MSNBC’s “The Ed Show,” in the middle of Major League Baseball’s Game 2 of the National League Championship series, featuring the St. Louis Cardinals versus Wisconsin’s championship-starved Milwaukee Brewers.

“That might be kind of a metaphor for the ineptness of the whole thing,” John McAdams, associate professor of political science at Marquette University told Wisconsin Reporter, referring to the unofficial launch of the recall campaign.

Despite the movement’s talk of capturing momentum, McAdams sees a flaming out of the passions Walker’s proposals fueled in the spring session. And holding a recall election in 2012, even one ostensibly pegged for early spring, could have a depleting effect on the initiative’s campaign fundraising power, McAdams said.

Among the U.S. Senate, congressional and monumental presidential races, campaign cash is expected to be in higher demand than ever.

The recall campaign, too, could be a victim of Walker’s success, McAdams said. The changes in collective bargaining have delivered savings to local governments, although not quite enough in many cases to offset deep state budget cuts.

“I’d be surprised if it succeeds,” McAdams said of the recall drive. “There’s a certain part of the Democratic core constituency where there’s a lot of anger, but you need widespread anger to fuel a really successful recall election.”

Democracy’s price tag

Should Walker be recalled, the special election will come with a price tag for taxpayers — although just how much remains unknown, according to election officials.

If — and it is a very big if — the election can be scheduled during Wisconsin’s presidential primary in April, that could drive down the cost of the recall election since the polling places would be open.

But that assumes the vetting of signatures, expected to be a protracted process, can wrap up in time for the Government Accountability Board, or GAB, to schedule primaries, if needed, then the general recall election.

“Our answer has been because all of the different moving parts of recall and uncertainty, it is impossible to predict exactly when a recall might be held,” GAB spokesman Reid Magney told Wisconsin Reporter last month.

GAB, at the request of state Rep. Robin Vos, R-Rochester, asked local election officials to assess the cost of the nine Senate recall elections held this past summer. That price was pegged at $2.1 million.

Magney could not say how much a statewide recall election would cost off the election schedule, noting GAB,  the state’s election agency, has not done extensive studies on the cost of elections. He could only say it could top $2.1 million.

While Wisconsin has no precedent and the state is a much smaller arena, California offers a bit of a guide on gubernatorial recalls.

In 2003, the state traded in Democrat incumbent Gray Davis for Republican challenger Arnold Schwarzenegger in a wild recall election.

According to information from California counties, the estimated local election cost was as much as $55 million, notes the California Secretary of State’s website. The total cost, including the state’s share, ran as high as $66 million.

Vos, a critic of what he sees as the recent rush to recall, authored a bill that would, through a constitutional amendment, limit Wisconsin’s long-standing recall process.

The proposal, which would require passage in two consecutive Legislatures and the support of Wisconsin voters in a referendum, would limit the cause for recall to criminal and ethically egregious acts, felony charges or convictions, misdemeanor convictions and basic abridgement of the public trust.

Currently, state-level lawmakers can face recall elections for no specified reason. The law only requires that those seeking a recall gather a number of signatures from people in the district equivalent to 25 percent of the district’s vote in the previous gubernatorial election.

The Vos amendment, if approved, would not be in force for a Walker recall.

“It is unfortunate we are now in what appears to be another campaign season,” said Kit Beyer, Vos’ communication director. “The legislation Robin has proposed really is to prevent what will be happening — a never-ending campaign cycle.”

But United Wisconsin said its efforts are fixed on one election, and only one election —  the removal Walker.