recall elections

Uncomfy conservatives and their enablers now even busier dismantling dissent

September 23, 2011 by Uppity Wisconsin

You've got to admire the chutzpah (pronounced "chuts-paw" by Michele Bachmann) of Republicans and conservatives and their opinion-leader enablers. First they mounted a bald attempt to seize permanent control of government -- and that's hardly an overstatement, since at least one GOP party official a couple years ago said flat out that was their goal. But the effort hasn't been going entirely as planned, so they're doubling down.

How, exactly, do you go about seizing control when the public isn't keen to vote your political cabal into undismissable majorities? Well, there are ways, as we are learning in Wisconsin. For example:

* Trying to eliminate or make much more difficult our state's constitutional provision for recalls of state elected lawmakers. The recalls can be for any reason the voters choose. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel as of this morning has now written at least two editorials backing this dumb-down of what we ought to rename Constitutional Recall.  

Scotty Fitz calls the aluminum kettle black

September 13, 2011 by Uppity Wisconsin

Scott FitzgeraldWith all the problems and challenges facing our allegedly bankrupt state, where joblessness is rampant and major infrastructure projects on hold, why is the Wisconsin Senate planning to "earn" its pay by meeting only one day in the entire month of September?

According to Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald, it's the fault of, who else, the Democratic Party.

Fitzgerald, a Juneau Republican, explained it to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel this way:

[He] said the Senate is slow to get started because of the recalls. Senators didn't have time to work on legislation as they focused on campaigns, and leaders had to reshuffle committees after the elections reshaped the makeup of the Senate and narrowed the Republican majority to one vote.

From Total Recall to Total Reflex -- Prosser cop-out is Wisconsin's latest wonder

August 26, 2011 by Uppity Wisconsin

Reflexing his muscleIn an interview with an investigating detective on July 8, State Supreme Court Justice David Prosser admitted he made contact with Justice Ann Walsh Bradley in an angry confrontation but recused himself on the basis that ... well, let's hear Prosser tell it:

"Did my hands touch her neck, yes, I admit that. Did I try to touch her neck, no, absolutely not, it was a total reflex."

To put Prosser's defense into other words: Justice Bradley's neck ran into my grasping, outstretched hands. 

Never mind that Prosser is six inches taller than Bradley, weighs thirty pounds more, and would have had to reach downward to encounter her neck -- sort of in the way that cartoonish Homer Simpson reflexively reaches out to strangle his son Bart. No, never mind. Case closed. Well, closed in the criminal courts, but still open before the Wisconsin Judicial Commission and the all-important court of public opinion.