New Law School Poll Results: Romney Rebounds, Governor’s Race Is Tight

Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney has rebounded strongly from a month ago among people expecting to vote in Wisconsin’s Republican presidential primary April 3, according to new results for the Marquette Law School Poll. In February, Romney trailed former Sen. Rick Santorum by 16 points in Wisconsin, but he now leads Santorum by eight points, 39% to 31%, the poll found.

Romney has also narrowed the gap between himself and Democratic President Barack Obama, if the presidential election were to be held today and they were the two major candidates. But Romney continues to trail Obama in Wisconsin – by five percentage points in the new poll, compared to 15 points a month ago – and Obama is ahead of other Republican candidates by 10 points or more.

The results of the third monthly round of the Law School’s year-long polling project show the looming recall election for governor remains very close. When all poll respondents were asked their preference in possible matchups, Republican Gov. Scott Walker led Democratic Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett by two percentage points, while Walker led Democratic candidate Kathleen Falk by four points.

Barrett has not announced yet if he will run. If he does, the poll indicated he would have more support than Falk among people intending to vote in a Democratic primary. If he does not, Falk would have a large lead over candidates such as State Rep. Kathleen Vinehout and Secretary of State Doug La Follette. The primary election for governor is expected to be held on May 8, with a final election on June 5.

The results of the polling, which was conducted from March 22 to 25, were released Tuesday at an “On the Issues with Mike Gousha” session at the Law School featuring Professor Charles Franklin, visiting professor of law and public policy and director of the poll. The video of that session can be viewed by clicking here. The full poll results can be viewed by clicking here. And a five minute video of Franklin being interviewed by Mike Gousha, the Law School’s distinguished fellow in law and public policy,  can be viewed by clicking here.

 

Continue ReadingNew Law School Poll Results: Romney Rebounds, Governor’s Race Is Tight

Signing a Recall Petition Does Not Require Judicial Recusal

We live in interesting times.  A segment of the general public is quick to forgive the killing of two young men in Slinger, Wisconsin and Sanford, Florida as the unavoidable consequence of the exercise of a constitutional right.  Yet at the same time, state court judges who have exercised their constitutional right of self-governance by signing a recall petition are being publicly called out by both special interest groups and the media, as if by signing the petition they have transgressed some moral boundary.  These are interesting times, indeed.

The signing of a recall petition is a right guaranteed by Article XIII of the Wisconsin Constitution.  It is a procedure whereby any voter can request that the continuation in office of an elected official in the State of Wisconsin should be put to the vote of the full electorate.  If a sufficient number of voters sign the petition, a recall election is held.  A recall can only succeed in removing the officeholder if both a sufficient number of recall signatures are filed and a majority of the electorate votes in favor of removal.  The Recall is democratic self-governance in its purest form, and along with the Initiative and the Referendum it is one of the three structural vehicles by which Progressive Era voters sought to bypass the influence that special interests hold on elected bodies.

The Wisconsin GOP has filed an official complaint against Dane County Circuit Court Judge David Flanagan with the Judicial Commission on the grounds that the judge should have recused himself in a case challenging the constitutionality of the Wisconsin Voter ID law.  Must judges who have signed a recall petition subsequently recuse themselves from sitting on any case in which the Governor, or Republican legislators, or the Republican Party of Wisconsin asserts that the signing of the petition evidences a bias against them?  The answer is “no.”  There is no explicit provision that prohibits judges from signing a recall petition or that mandates that they recuse themselves from any politically charged case if they have done so.

Continue ReadingSigning a Recall Petition Does Not Require Judicial Recusal

In Praise of Flip-Floppers (Part II)

In my last post I scrutinized the tendency for contemporary political discourse to use the pejorative term “flip-flop” to refer to virtually any change of position by a candidate for public office. I argued that this usage uncritically discounts the possibility that some position changes are not only entirely justified, but should, if anything, improve our perception of a candidate, and that the likely effects are excessive cynicism and an exaggerated sense of the value of consistency. In this post, I want to add one more argument to the critique: contemporary usage is also problematic because it tends to attack position changes without regard for the public office the candidate seeks, and thus fails to appreciate how the particular constitutional function of the office might make a candidate’s shifts more or less problematic.

Continue ReadingIn Praise of Flip-Floppers (Part II)