New Ventures and Old

As some members of the Law School know, last winter I received a grant from the Bradley Foundation to form a nonprofit law center that has come to be known as the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty. WILL engages in public education and litigation in the public interest with respect to issues of constitutional government, individual liberty, and the preservation of a robust civil society. We currently have a staff of four, including Tom Kamenick (L’09), and look forward to expanding as we complete our first year of operation this July. You can read more about us here.

I am excited by WILL but also happy to be able to return to the Law School on the adjunct faculty and teach Election Law this spring. When I proposed the class and first taught it a few years ago, I thought it would be something that could be offered every two years for the politicos in the student body. I had no idea that it would be delivered during a time when Wisconsin had become a virtual election law laboratory. But that’s where we are and that’s where I’d like to go in my next blog post.

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Friends of Scott Walker v. GAB Changes the Recall Rules Mid-Stream

Today, Judge J. Mac Davis ruled that the Government Accountability Board must take “affirmative steps to identify and strike duplicate, fictitious or unrecognizable signatures as it reviews the recall petitions expected to be filed against Gov. Scott Walker.”  The ruling comes in the case of Friends of Scott Walker v. GAB, filed in Waukesha County Circuit Court on December 15, 2011. The complaint in the case sought a declaratory judgment from the court that the procedures of the Government Accountability Board, whereby the GAB accepted (but did not necessarily count) duplicative signatures on recall petitions, violated the United States Constitution, the Wisconsin Constitution and Wisconsin law.  The complaint in the case is available here.

The GAB responded to the lawsuit by arguing that the Wisconsin statutes provide a clearly defined procedure that allows elected officials subject to recall to instigate challenges to any signatures that appear to be duplicative, fictitious or unrecognizable. After the GAB accepts the recall petitions, there is a period of 10 days in which the signatures may be challenged by the official. It is at the challenge stage that suspect signatures should be identified and removed, according to the GAB, and not earlier when the recall petitions are accepted by the agency. The GAB also contended that there was no provision in the Wisconsin Statutes that granted the agency the authority to do what the Friends of Scott Walker asked it to do.

Judge Davis disagreed with the GAB, and earlier today he ruled that the GAB is required to take affirmative action that will have the effect of reducing the burden that the Friends of Scott Walker would otherwise face. This is because the GAB must now identify and remove suspect signatures on its own initiative.

Why is the GAB obligated to do this, when there is no statutory language that explicitly places such an obligation on the agency?

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The Original Intent of the Recall Power

Some opponents of the effort to recall Governor Scott Walker have claimed that the recall provisions of the Wisconsin State Constitution are intended solely to permit the recall of elected officials when they have engaged in criminal or grossly unethical conduct. The latest example of this claim can be seen in the column by Jonathan Rupperecht that appeared in the November 3rd edition of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. In it, Mr. Rupperecht says, “Recalls are designed as special interventions when elected officials become guilty of serious malfeasance in office or when they engage in illegal actions or indulge in offensively immoral behavior.”

This statement is objectively false. The recall provisions contained in the Wisconsin State Constitution were never intended to be limited in such a fashion. The original design of the right of recall is, in fact, intended to permit voters to recall elected officials for virtually any reason so long as the procedural mechanisms of the State Constitution are followed.

For present purposes, I take no position on whether a recall of Governor Walker based upon his actions since taking office is a good idea. However, Governor Walker’s supporters contend that the original “design” of the recall provisions is limited to circumstances where there is evidence of criminal conduct or a serious ethical violation. In making such claims, Walker’s supporters are attempting to cast doubt on the underlying legitimacy of the proposed recall drive, rather than arguing that the recall is unwise. Assuming that a recall petition against Governor Walker is filed on November 15, it is therefore worthwhile to ask whether the use of the recall power in this instance would be consistent with the original design of Article XIII of the Wisconsin Constitution. The answer to that question is “yes.”

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