The Journal Sentinel Opposes Recalls And Declines To Endorse: And If There Is Walker Recall?

The Journal Sentinel editorial board said in a Sunday offering, "The perpetual campaign," that it will make no endorsements in the Senate recall elections, preferring that policy decisions be hashed out by voters in regular election cycles.

And argues that recalls not be used to punish an elected official, or to undo an election, over a single issue, or vote or policy choice.

The editorial said, in part:

The perpetual campaign

Nine state senators face recall this summer in an extraordinary manifestation of political division. The recall elections are an attempt to punish policy decisions, and that's a mistake...

The Editorial Board will not recommend candidates in the recall elections. We believe policy arguments are best resolved on the floors of legislative bodies or at the ballot box during regular elections. Recalls should be used to punish gross malfeasance or corruption - something that cannot wait for the normal election cycle - not to overturn the results of an election or to dispute policy differences.

Advocates argue that the recalls hold politicians accountable. But these elections, arising from the heat generated by a single issue, risk further dividing the electorate and giving rise to a perpetual campaign. What's the harm in waiting a few months? Each of these senators will face voters in regular elections next year. Hold them accountable then - after passions have cooled.

This is a valid and defensible position, and is a good opportunity for more discussion.

My response?

What if the single action or policy choice, like, Scott Walker's erasure of most collective bargaining for public employees, uses state law to drastically alter the lives and incomes of thousands of citizens - - willfully, without their participation?

And removes their unions from the playing field?

And mandates broad limitations on local governments that prevents elected officials from making a range of budgeting and policy-making decisions with, and on behalf of, their constituents?

And that policy action was sprung by a freshly-elected Governor who won only 52% of the votes - - hardly a mandate - -  on an unsuspecting electorate after a lie of omission?

Described this way by the Journal Sentinel editorial board in March:

"Walker never campaigned on disenfranchising public-employee unions. If he had, he would not have been elected."

Described by Walker himself in the fake Koch brother call as when he "dropped the bomb."

It seems to me that in the abstract, and in most cases, the editorial would be correct.

But that there are exceptional, perhaps unique circumstances, to the trigger for the current spate of recalls, and though interest in future legislators' recalls may wane - - and I fully expect the current GOP-led Legislature to begin to rewrite the State Constitution to limit or bar the recall procedure - -  we all know that the Big One is coming this fall and winter when recall papers are circulated statewide against Walker.

And will probably force a recall election, too. That's speculation, of course, but right now I'd put money on it.

I wonder if the newspaper's no-endorsement-in-recalls position will hold if Walker, whom the paper endorsed for election in 2010 and is still sticking with, is successfully forced into a special election over, yes, a policy question that sparked the Senate recalls.

I cannot imagine the paper sitting that one out, and doing anything other than that affirming its 2010 Walker endorsement.