Previously: Wisconsin: in the trenches for the recall of Gov. Scott Walker (r) (December 19, 2011)

Proponents of the recall of Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker (r) have collected over 500,000 signatures toward their goal of 720,000 to initiate a recall election.

Inside the Wisconsin Democratic Party Recall Walker Dane County East Main Office in Madison.

This morning we drove to the Wisconsin Democratic Party recall headquarters a few blocks from the state capitol building in Madison. We spoke with Jim Roseberry, a volunteer working for the recall effort:

Show Me Progress:  How long have you been working on the, this, uh, recall process?

Jim Roseberry: From the start. In fact, I was, uh, pretty active during the demonstrations.

Show Me Progress: In, in, the demonstrations precipitated the recall process for you?

Jim Roseberry: Uh, his [Governor Scott Walker] comments about the budget repair bill, uh, made me want to consider that as a possibility. And then more and more as we started to occupy the Capitol and make our political point of view known that became more and more, uh, a reasonable course of action in my mind.

Show Me Progress: And so how soon after the, uh, the movement at the Capitol with the demonstrations did the, uh, recall become, uh, a, a practical reality, as things started to get rolling?

Jim Roseberry: Well, for me, uh, it’s, it was a continuous thread. Uh, when finally the fourteen [Democratic state senators] came back and the legislation was passed and the protests subsided, although there were people who kept, still went into the Capitol to make their presence known. Uh, I didn’t see any break. You know, I, I, we were basically waiting for November fifteenth. And there were many of us who were actively organized and getting that going, so…

Jim Roseberry, a volunteer in the effort to recall Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker (r).

A sidewalk sandwich board in front of a shop on State Street in Madison, Wisconsin.

…Show Me Progress: As, as you’ve gone through this process have you been surprised by, um, the, the, the quick volume of signatures?

Jim Roseberry: Yes, uh, having no experience in recalling, uh, politicians. Uh, it’s all new to me and I’ve been amazed by the, uh, groundswell of support and the number of volunteers engaged in it. One comparison that comes to mind is that I’m old enough to have lived through the anti-war movement. In fact, I was a student at the University of California at Berkeley at the time and, uh, relatively conservative. Such a time. Grew up Republican. And, um, the composition of people engaged in this recall movement is much broader than it was, than the anti-war movement was. Age, gender, uh, background. So it’s quite inspiring that way.

Show Me Progress: Uh, what kind of response have you encountered as you’ve progressed through the, the, the recall process?

Jim Roseberry: Um, almost universally positive. Uh, people eager to sign, eager to be engaged, course, I live in Madison, which is not typical, either. You know, it’s not a model for all of Wisconsin, but, uh, that’s the case, and I haven’t been out collecting signatures. You know, you hear these anecdotal stories about somebody flipping the bird or whatever else. I consider them all outliers anyway. But, uh, I haven’t encountered any of that.

Show Me Progress: Um, so as you’ve worked in this office, uh, you’ve dealt with volunteers  [Jim Roseberry: “Um, hm.”] coming in. [Jim Roseberry: “Um, hm.”] Uh, are you finding that the volunteers are people who are activists who used to be, who are used to doing this kind of thing, or are you getting a mix of people who…

Jim Roseberry: I think it’s a phenomenal mix. And, uh, you know, there are, there are people who are going to be politically active, they’re, clearly they vote and, uh, pay attention to the news, but, I think many of them are becoming much more active than they’ve ever been in their lives, around collecting signatures and bringing ’em in. And it’s quite impressive. And, uh, the whole process, I think, has been rootinized in a, in a really good way. And we, people bring petitions in, we hand them blank petitions out, they bring signed, sig, petitions in. We go over them carefully with people and when you’re going over them carefully with people you get to ask a few questions. And, uh, it’s kind of interesting.

Show Me Progress: So, so [crosstalk]…

Jim Roseberry: The variety of people involved.

Show Me Progress: Uh, huh. Uh, so, you, you get stories about their background and why they’re doing this.

Jim Roseberry: Um, hm. Um, hm.

Show Me Progress: And so, have, have any of those stories struck you?

Jim Roseberry: Uh, not outside of the generic, uh, recognition that, uh, that it’s not only, not just the policies of this government and, and this, uh, governor, but it’s the methods and approaches that the, that he and his people have taken. And people are very frustrated with that.

Show Me Progress: How has Wisconsin changed since January?

Jim Roseberry: Well, it’s become much more politicized. I mean, in some sense you could send a thank you letter to the governor because a lot of people who were kind of walking, uh, slightly asleep are now wide awake and engaged. And making themselves aware of what’s going on and taking action. And, uh, uh, so, I think that it’s been incredibly politicized. And much of it in a good direction, from my point of view.

Show Me Progress: Uh, in the sense that people are actively engaged and participating.

Jim Roseberry: Yes, collecting signatures, uh, coming to the office to make phone calls. Uh, I go to the coffee houses every day, I’m retired so I can do that, and, uh, but, uh, just the conversations you hear amongst people, you know.

Show Me Progress: As, as you approach the end of the signature process, you know, the next step is the, ultimately, the election, and [Jim Roseberry: “Um, hm.”], um, do you feel that, that the people that you’ve been engaged with will follow through?

Jim Roseberry: Yes.

Show Me Progress:  They, they’ve signed that [crosstalk]…

Jim Roseberry: Yeah, and [crosstalk]…

Show Me Progress:  … that petition and so they’re going to participate.

Jim Roseberry: Yeah. I think so. And that, you know, who knows how an election’s gonna turn out? And, uh, I’ve lived, lived long enough that I’m not attached to outcomes. So if I were to lose life would go on. But, uh, this is going to be a very different election. The two thousand ten election was an off year election. The turnout was light, and, uh, a lot of people really didn’t know who Walker was and what he stood for. They now know what his, uh, what he, what his policies are and what his methods are and they’re quite energized. So it’s gonna be a different, uh, different election.

Show Me Progress:  Do you think the, the, in, in two thousand ten election that people were really aware of what the consequences of the election were?

Jim Roseberry: No. Uh, first of all, I think that the evidence is quite clear Walker did not really say exactly what he was gonna do. I think if he had run and said, we have a budget crisis and teachers and, are gonna have to make a contribution, that’s one thing. If he had said we’r
e gonna, uh, get rid of unions or really hamstring them and we’re gonna ram it through the legislature, that’s another thing. And I think the second part of that they weren’t aware of. I also think it was an election, off year election which don’t go well for parties in power, generally. And then I think that the previous governor who was a Democrat, Jim Doyle, uh, was not liked by a lot of people. And, uh, you can decide what you make of that, but, so, many people will vote against rather than for. And so Walker, I think, was, uh, had some advantages in that election which he doesn’t have right now.

Show Me Progress: So, after, after , uh, I believe it’s, about two weeks, or three weeks before the, um, petitions are due in?

Jim Roseberry: They’re due in the middle of January.

Show Me Progress: Middle of January. [Jim Roseberry: “Um, hm.”] Um, what then for you?

Jim Roseberry: Well, uh, getting the petitions in, making sure they’re squeaky clean so the Government Accountability Board can have an easy, clear route to verifying them, and since it’s such a, a huge task it’ll take a while. And, uh, so we just sit patiently by and wait for them to review them. Uh, I, I expect them to find that there are enough legitimate signatures to have an election. Then there’ll probably be some chicanery around trying to extend the election and get the voter ID law in and etcetera and so forth. So, there’s room there for some political education, if not, action and then, uh, once the election is set, uh, campaigning for the election.

Show Me Progress: All right. Thank you very much for your time.

Jim Roseberry: My pleasure.

Jim Roseberry.

Proponents of the recall of Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker (r) have collected over 500,000 signatures toward their goal of 720,000 to initiate a recall election.

Opposing viewpoints on the steps of the Middleton, Wisconsin City Hall.

We spoke with a volunteer gathering recall petition signatures in Middleton, Wisconsin:

Show Me Progress: How long, how long have you been out here collecting petitions [signatures]?

Sharon Nash: Well, since, since this all started on the fifteenth I’ve been out, um, pretty much every day [laugh].

Show Me Progress: Is this, is this [crosstalk]…

Sharon Nash:  Except for Thursdays and Fridays.

Show Me Progress: Is this like, are you talking, like, uh, fifteenth of November, when you started?

Sharon Nash:  Yeah, I’m part of the Middleton Action Group which in Middleton is, um, working on the, the recall.

Show Me Progress: And, so what’s been, what been your response so far?

Sharon Nash:  What’s been my response as far as?

Show Me Progress: Meaning the, the response that people have been[crosstalk]…

Sharon Nash, collecting recall petition signatures outside of the Middleton, Wisconsin City Hall.

Sharon Nash:  Oh, well, the, the petition signers are wonderful [laugh]. And, and, uh, we’ve had people, you know, stop and bring us tea and hot coffee when we’ve been out on the street doing drive throughs or, you know, collecting petitions that way. We’ve been in different parts of the city, um, on different days now. We’re in front of city hall today because it’s, uh, property tax, uh, paying time, and so [laugh][crosstalk]…

Show Me Progress: It’s a[crosstalk]…

Sharon Nash:  People are paying their property taxes, so [crosstalk], people coming up.

Show Me Progress: So that’s where the traffic is, yeah.

Sharon Nash:  Yeah, and the library’s been good. The post office has been good. Uh, around Costco, um, my husband and I will do on the weekends. And, uh, we get a lot of, uh, lot of thumbs up from supporters [laugh] of, of the recall. And the supporters of [Governor Scott] Walker [r] are, um, [pause], uh, some of them will just say a polite no. And others will be really nasty [laugh]. [crosstalk][inaudible]

Show Me Progress: Yeah, but , have you, have you ever felt, um, that anybody would, would  get out of control at any time?

Sharon Nash:  Um, you know, it gives you pause as you’re standing on the street corner or, um, when some people will come up to you and just unload lots of profanity, kinda. But, you just have to kinda, just turn, and turn away and not engage.

Show Me Progress: Um, so, what, what makes you come out here, all these days, and do this?

Sharon Nash:  Uh, I’m just upset that our, our Democracy has been taken away from us. I was, uh, took part in a lot of the demonstrations in February, March, April, and then the recall elections, uh, for the senators. And, uh, it was a really, the, the protests at the capitol were just really profound. Uh, it was, it really affected me deeply as far as seeing all these people gather together with such passion. And, uh, and what he, Walker was doing to the state was just horrifying as far as, uh, the collective bargaining. And Wisconsin has been known for, for its, um, support and the beginnings of the, the unions here. So, uh, the history has just been rich, uh, with support for working families and workers. And, and, uh, to see it all disappear within a few short months of Walker getting in, and the other tea party, um, people that got in on, uh. Uh, I think, I think it was  a kind of a rigged, the money that was put into it was, um, totally distorted what the, what the issues were and, uh, um, I think people didn’t really have enough information about what these tea party people were really all about and what they were gonna do. And they had no idea about, uh, uh, what American for Prosperity was all about and the Koch brothers and ALEC, American, American Legislative Exchange Commission [Council] . Uh, people have no idea that’s where this legislation came from, you know. And so it wasn’t legislation that was coming from people in Wisconsin. It was bought and paid for ALEC. [laugh] And so, uh, that, and it’s not only about the, the, uh, collective bargaining, it’s about the relaxing of, of environmental regulations, it’s, um, the slashing of the budgets in, in education, it’s, um, about the, uh, voter suppression, um, which is the [crosstalk] voter ID.

Show Me Progress: Voter ID, yeah.

Sharon Nash:  Which is really, uh, for how that, the education budgets and the voter ID thing, how that affects the rural areas is just horrifying.  And, um, and, and the young, the students, and the, uh, the senior citizens, you know, who can’t get out or don’t have access, have no idea how this is going to affect them and, and how they’re gonna show up at the polls and not gonna be able to vote.

One of the many recall bumper stickers in Madison, Wisconsin.

Meanwhile, Governor Walker’s campaign filed a lawsuit, citing the 14th Amendment.

Wisconsin’s Government Accountability Board, which oversees recall elections, issued a statement a few days ago.

Statement on Recall Petition Verification

Date: December 14, 2011

MADISON, WI – The Government Accountability Board issued the following statement by Director and General Counsel Kevin Kennedy regarding news media reports about how the Board will handle potentially fictitious names on recall petitions:

Comments made at our Board meeting Tuesday by elections specialists have been taken out of context.  They were answering questions about one aspect of the petition verification process.  Wisconsin’s recall petition process is designed with multiple checks and balances provided by the non-partisan G.A.B., as well as the competing partisan interests of the recall committee and the incumbent officeholder.  These competing interests ensure that ineligible signers, duplicate signatures and fake names get weeded out.  Focusing on any one aspect of the process in isolation misses the forest for a few trees.

The recall process starts at the grassroots level with petition circulators. They personally obtain each signature on the page and are responsible for striking any signature that does not match the name given to them by the person signing the petition.  These circulators sign each petition page stating that they understand that falsifying the certification is a punishable offense under state law, which is a felony.

The Board understands that the recall committees are doing their own quality control prior to filing petitions in January, involving hand-entering names from each petition page into a database that will allow them to identify duplicate signatures and fake names.  It is in the recall committees’ interests to do this to build their own mailing lists, as well as to help ensure that the petitions they file with the G.A.B. will stand up to the scrutiny of challenges.

Wisconsin law requires the G.A.B. to presume that petition signatures are valid, which means that the staff cannot automatically strike names that might appear to be fake.  That level of review would require a change in law as well as much greater resources than are available or practical.  However, the G.A.B. staff and temporary workers reviewing the petitions w
ill be flagging apparently fictitious names for review by higher-level staff.

At the same time G.A.B. is conducting its review, the incumbent officeholders’ committees will be reviewing copies of the petitions as part of the challenge process.  If and when the incumbents’ committees submit challenges to individual signatures, the G.A.B. staff must evaluate each signature and the documentation provided by the challenger, and may use outside sources such as voter registration lists and telephone directories to determine the validity of signatures.  The Government Accountability Board members will then vote on all the challenges at a public meeting to determine whether the petition has a sufficient number of signatures to trigger a recall election.  Additionally, both the petitioner and the incumbent officeholder have the ability to appeal the Board’s decision to the circuit court.

The right of Wisconsin residents to recall elected officials is guaranteed in the Wisconsin Constitution, and the laws of this state spell out the process by which that can happen.  These laws can seem complicated.  The process for any recall petition review will be consistent with the rules that were in place for both parties in the 2011 recall elections.  In reviewing approximately 215,000 signatures as part of the 2011 recalls, only a handful of signatures were successfully challenged on the basis that the name was fictitious or of a deceased individual.  

A homemade sign in support of Governor Scott Walker (r) along U.S. Highway 151 in southwestern Wisconsin.

You’d think with all that cash raised from big money interests that Governor Walker could afford nicer signs.

That’s over a half a million signatures. It ain’t exactly a ringing endorsement.

Previously:

Voices of Organized Labor in Jefferson City on February 26, 2011 (February 27, 2011)

Wisconsin: “Thank God for Missouri…” (April 21, 2011)

St. Louis: Jefferson Jackson Dinner – Wisconsin State Senator Lena Taylor (D) (June 19, 2011)

“What would you do with a brain if you had one?”

If you haven’t heard it already go listen to the audio of the phone conversation between anti-worker Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker (r) and who he thinks to be a right wingnut billionaire supporter.

Athenae at First Draft:

….It’s not that what he said was all that new, given what anyone with a pair of eyes can see, it’s that at no point during this call, during all these monstrous things, did Walker even THINK this might be a prank. At no point did he say, wait a minute, this person is rather a douche, and excuse me but who are you? No, he giggled along with casual discussions of smashing the entire state’s underpinnings like he talks to people like this a thousand times a day.

A lot of his defenders spent the day pointing out that most of Walker’s comments aren’t anything new, and that the blogger actually comes off far worse for saying all those horrible things, and that’s the entire goddamn point. Walker is someone who is totally used to being around people who say shit like that, so used to it he didn’t even question whether the call was real. That’s the real news here: That this guy is even more of an asshole than everybody who already hates him thought he was.

Bingo.

Oh, hell, we’ll save you the click through. Here are the audio recordings of the phone call:

Stoopid is as stoopid does.

Update:

Dennis G. at Balloon Juice:

….The call was funny and useful in the way it exposed Walker, but the fact that the call even got through says even more. The prankster got a hearing by claiming to be David Koch, but he proved himself to be the real deal through his racism, his meanness and just being a dick. That got him connected to Walker without any further review. In some way it is a bit comforting to know that Team Walker is staffed by idiots. But only a bit comforting as George W. Bush has recently proven that a team of idiots can do real and lasting damage as they play out their fantasies in the real world….