Walker Recall Push Could Bring Down More Republican Legislators

With an evolving recall movement now about to enter a new year, Democrats can be feeling better and thinking bigger, given that they are reporting Monday night that volunteers jave collected more than 55% of the signatures needed to force a recall election on Scott Walker early next year, with the first two successful state senate recalls earlier this year having helped move the process to where it is today.

The likelihood - - the apparent certainty  - that Scott Walker is going to end up on a recall ballot due to the success of the accelerating petition signature drive is bad news for four GOP state senators who are the subject of local recall efforts underway as we speak, simultaneously with Walker's, and who could be the newest dominos.

For the four in jeopardy, standing with Walker may be more easily said than done. Just ask Randy Hopper and Dan Kapanke, this summer's duo of recalled, full-fledged Senate GOP dominos.

 Those lined up, and against whom signatures are also being collected, are:

• Scott Fitzgerald recall, Wisconsin State Senate (2012)
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• Van Wanggaard recall, Wisconsin State Senate (2012)
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• Terry Moulton recall, Wisconsin State Senate (2012)
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• Pam Galloway recall, Wisconsin State Senate (2012)  

Republicans know that recall sentiment is running against them, so they are rushing to the State Supreme Court - - where they have a sympathetic majority - - to ask that the redistricting plan that Republican legislators just wrote - - with all their partisan advantages, and state-paid lawyers, too - - go into effect early, and just in time for recalls.

That would allow the four Senators perhaps facing recall elections to run in districts just redrawn to boost the number of GOP voters - - but which Republicans had scheduled in the redistricting law to take effect for election purposes in November, 2012.

It's the latest Republican machination to stack the deck against Democrats, including fielding fake Democrats in the last round of recall elections to confuse voters, force primaries and extend Republican fund-raising time, and also hamstringing registration and election-day voting in the new Voter ID plan.

I predict all these schemes will back-fire, as people do not like their laws and rights chipped at or taken away - - and that includes the sneak attack on collective bargaining processes that Walker and his legislature unleashed after the 2010 election sneak  that triggered recall fever.