Why Are Democrats Continuing Recall Elections when Redistricting Is Basically A Done Deal?

I love to “armchair quarterback” and piece together connections in events to determine what impact it will have as an antecedents to future events. The recall of 9 State Senators is no exception and has some interesting twists and turns. First of all, since living in Wisconsin some 15 going on 16 years, I have never seen the electorate so engaged in the political process. Just about everyone capable of cognition has an opinion one way or another and the passion regarding their positions seems to be at an all time high. In the past there have been issues that have been hotly debated, such as vouchers and school choice, but currently it’s not just a one or possibly two issues that are on the table; but a clash between basic ideologies and people’s view of the world.

In the 8th Senate District race between Senator Alberta Darling and State Assembly Person Sandy Pasch; a question keeps getting posed as to why are the Democrats attempting to short circuit the election process by having a recall election and not just wait until Alberta stands for reelection in November, 2012? The other questions continuously being posed by conservatives; what are Pasch’s plans to address the state’s budget shortfall and job creation?

I want to make it perfectly clear that what is to follow is not anything stated by anyone in the Democratic Party or any political candidate. This is strictly my “armchair” opinion.

I think the Democrats looked at the situation where they were losing big time, beginning with the November election and could not divert the steam roller effect of a strong Republican governor, both houses of the legislature under Republican control, and the Supreme Court with a conservative majority. For Democrats it was the “perfect storm” and the Republicans dealt a disabling blow by significantly weakening the public employees and teachers’ unions and threatening to significantly cut the Democrat’s union money supply.

They had failed to unseat Justice David Prosser. If they had succeeded they would have had the opportunity to push everything into the Supreme Court and block the Republicans in that manner. However, losing that battle they wanted to find a means to attempt to achieve some power over the redistricting process that comes every ten years. The Republicans reading this potential problem, after 6 of their senate seat holders had to stand for recall, decided to force the recall elections later into the year by running “fake Democratic candidates” forcing primaries and buying them at least another month in time before the recall elections. Why? This gave the Republican Legislature the chance to break precedent and push through redistricting before the Democrats had an opportunity to block the process. Now, the Democrats, who will probably attempt to push it into the courts, will probably have a difficult time getting the courts to hear it, let alone rule in their favor. The changes in districts would give the Republicans an advantage from 2012 through 2022. Now the question is; since the redistricting is pretty much a done deal, why continue with the recalls?

In my opinion the answer is pretty straight forward; they must stop Walker and the legislature from unbraiding anymore of their favored programs and legislation. Currently that can only occur if they can get in control of the Senate. The Democrats are attempting to implement a holding plan until the November election of 2012 when they hope they can regain control of both houses of the legislature. Also, if they regain control of the state senate through the recall process, then they see it as a process to successfully recall the governor.

I don’t think my conservative friends are going to get any answers from Sandy about her plans to address the state’s budgetary shortfalls or jobs creation. She is not running to introduce new legislation but to perform a holding action and to block the Republicans from introducing any new legislation.

With the election of November 2010 and the Republicans continuing win streak, most Republicans think it’s Christmas time and they have their stockings full of goodies. The Democrats look at the situation and they see their stockings are either empty or filled with coal.