Scott Walker caves in and does the right thing
After an unprecedented threemonth delay, Gov. Scott Walker finally called for special elections in two legislative districts that have lacked representation since December. Better late than never, but things should have never dragged out so long.
Wisconsin law holds that a governor must call for special elections as quickly as possible to fill vacated seats. Once the call is made, the elections must be held within 62 to 77 days. Simple enough.
Sen. Frank Lasee (R-De Pere) and Rep. Keith Ripp (R-Lodi) stepped down to take jobs in the governor’s administration, handing in their resignations on the last weekday of the year. Walker spokesperson Tom Evenson told the Wisconsin State Journal at the time that the “statute requiring a special (election) applies if a vacancy occurs in the year of the regularly scheduled election. Since Sen. Lasee and Rep. Ripp resigned in 2017, special elections are not required.” Given that the resignations were purposely timed to happen just days before the new year, that was a pretty thin sauce.
Walker further argued that holding special elections would have been a “waste” of taxpayer money and time, though it would mean two districts’ worth of Wisconsin citizens were to go nearly a full year without representation.
Three judges disagreed, with the final ruling coming Wednesday and appearing to put the nail in the coffin of the attempted stall. District 2 Court of Appeals Judge Paul Reilly in Waukesha eloquently summed up the flaws in the Walker argument: “We know of no law that allows us to disregard the (statute). Representative government and the election of our representatives are never ‘unnecessary,’ never a ‘waste of taxpayer resources,’ and the calling of the special elections are, as the governor acknowledges, his ‘obligation.’ “
Senate Leader Scott Fitzgerald had called for a special session of the Legislature to ram through an amendment to an otherwise uncontroversial bill that would have absolved the governor of his duty to call the elections and further diluted the checks and balances provided by the judicial branch.
Earlier, I mentioned how unprecedented this delay has been. Wisconsin has a long history of calling special elections — 105 of them over a five-decade period, according to an exhaustive review by WisContext. The longest it took to call any of them prior to this particular debacle was just over 200 days under Gov. Tony Earl in the early ‘80s. Again according to the review by WisContext, of the 105 held, governors called for a special election before or on the same day the incumbent’s resignation formally became effective in 26 instances. In the rest, governors waited only an average of 17 days to call them.
If Walker had gotten his wish, it would have been well over 300 days before the people of two districts would have been able to cast their ballots. Why? Republicans have likely been sensing vulnerability since President Donald Trump’s popularity took a significant dip in the state last year (it’s since gone up, but not by much, and with a massive
gender gap). GOP anxiety is surely greater after the unexpected 9-point win of Patty Schachtner in Senate District 10, which had gone for Trump by 17 points in 2016 and been held comfortably by a Republican since 2000.
But fear of losing a seat to the opposing party is never a reason to stall or cancel an election. By having done so, too, it’s entirely possible folks who may have been inclined to vote Republican in those districts will now be put off by the party’s attempts to prevent them from having representation for an entire year.
The whole point is to allow voters to decide for themselves. It should alarm people of all political persuasions that it took a lawsuit to force the governor to do the right — and legally required — thing.