Some Chicago Boyz know each other from student days at the University of Chicago. Others are Chicago boys in spirit. The blog name is also intended as a good-humored gesture of admiration for distinguished Chicago School economists and fellow travelers.
Compared to the ethnic mix of Chicago, where every race and ethnic group is visible in any crowd of any size, it is always weird to go to Wisconsin and see thousands of people who are all white on both sides of an issue. Not that there is anything wrong with that.
(Further observations and assessments of the protest / counter-protest in Madison below the fold.)
Wisconsin Senate rules require a 3/5 quorum in the Senate. There are currently 19 Republican senators, and 14 Democrat senators.
The GOP needs one more to get to 20.
The Democrat senators have apparently said they will stay away for weeks if necessary.
If the GOP majority could replace one Democrat with a Republican, that would give them 20. The remaining Democrat state senators could stay in Illinois watching ESPN and chatting up the waitresses as long as they want. The GOP could proceed without them.
If the length of play really is weeks then Article XIII, Sec. 12 of the Wisconsin Constitution, which provides for recall elections, could be used.
The qualified electors of the state of any congressional, judicial or legislative district or of a county may petition for the recall of any incumbent elective officer after the first year of the term for which the incumbent was elected … .
So, any recall could only be directed at Senators elected in 2008, not 2010.
Looking at the Democrats elected to the Wisconsin Senate in 2008 it appears that Democrat Sen. Jim Holperin won a squeaker, with 51% over his Republican opponent, in an open race. So, Sen. Holperin is the most vulnerable Democrat Wisconsin state senator.
The Wisconsin Constitution requires:
The recall petition shall be signed by electors equalling at least twenty-five percent of the vote cast for the office of governor at the last preceding election, in the state, county or district which the incumbent represents
It is not easy to determine how many people this is, but I estimate it to be about 100,000 people total, so 25,000 or so to be 25%. That is probably not grossly wrong. If someone has the exact number please put it in the comments. If the signatures for the petition can be gathered:
The filing officer with whom the recall petition is filed shall call a recall election for the Tuesday of the 6th week after the date of filing the petition or, if that Tuesday is a legal holiday, on the first day after that Tuesday which is not a legal holiday.
So, the total time to get a recall election scheduled is the time to gather the signatures in Wisconsin Senate District 12 plus six weeks. Call it two months or so total if the GOP made a serious effort, which is late April.
Could the GOP get a campaign going in Holperin’s district to recall him, have the election, and get a shenanigan-proof 20 seat guaranteed quorum before Memorial Day?
Am I missing anything here?
(I was at the rally today. Holperin’s name was mentioned as a possible recall target. I wrote this post before I heard that.)
I STAND WITH SCOTT WALKER RALLY.
Saturday, February 19 · 12:00pm 3:00pm
Location Wisconsin State Capitol, South Steps
Who else is going?
“The Democrats failed to show up when the Senate started its business around midday Thursday, and the sergeant at arms began looking for them. If he’s unable to find them, he’s authorized to seek help, including potentially contacting police.”
This is outrageous. A strong (peaceful, lawful, orderly) response is really needed. This confrontation will set the tone for all further reform efforts in the country, in other states, and in Washington. The Wisconsin GOP has shown courage and taken the lead. They need to be backed up.
These tactics are being test-driven in Wisconsin. They will be repeated all over the country if they are not stopped here.
The Address, phone, fax and email info for all Wisconsin Senators can be found here, identified by party.
Visit, call, fax, or email the Democrat Senators and demand that they show up to vote.
This is not just a Wisconsin issue. People from anywhere in the country, or even the world, say, Egypt, who are interested in the survival and success of democracy, may want to make that contact.
If any of them fail to do so, Wisconsin law provides for the recall of elected officials. Senators who are refusing to show up to vote, to prevent a quorum on a matter of grave public importance, should be recalled. See: Wisconsin Const. Art. XIII, Sec. 12. Some helpful discussion of the mechanics of a recall in Wisconsin can be found here.
Is there anyone up there in a Wisconsin Tea Party to get the protest going?
Where is the Dane County Tea Party when you need it!
Newt Gingrich led the GOP to a massive victory in the 1994 elections.
He and Clinton went nose to nose, Clinton won.
The battle was the Federal Government shutdown of late 1995.
I remember it well. The country was outraged by the shutdown, Clinton successfully blamed the Republicans, his popularity went through the roof, Gingrich became a pariah, and the GOP gave up on any reform agenda and went native in DC. It was an unconditional, unmitigated victory for Clinton.
Obama has sent a budget to Congress. Obama’s budget makes no effort whatsoever to cut spending.
Obama is not “failing to lead” as some people are claiming. That is all wrong.
All suggestions to that effect are all wrong. Obama knows exactly what he is doing.
Obama is setting up a confrontation and he plans to win.
Obama is betting that he can force the GOP to make their proposed cuts, which he can blame them for, which he can truthfully say he does not support. Then he can attack the Republicans for making the cuts. He will appeal to the people who are suffering from the cuts, and strip away GOP support. They will be angry and mobilized.
Obama then plans to force the GOP into a funding crisis just as Clinton did. Obama plans to destroy the GOP reform wave of 2011 just as Clinton destroyed the GOP reform effort in 1995.
Obama’s team attempted to use the Tucson massacre in the same fashion that Clinton used the Oklahoma City bombings, to discredit the GOP. Obama is acutely aware of the Clinton playbook. This is another re-run.
If Obama wins, then the GOP / Tea Party effort is over and the Democrats have won the whole ball game. Obama gets reelected, the GOP is finished as a political party, and we have a mess for some number of years while a new party forms. But odds are it will be too late by then. A majority of people will be dependent on the Government.
It is that serious. Obama’s brazen, no-cuts budget proposal is not a sign of weakness.
It is a bold chess move that demands a strong response.
Obama has chosen to make this budget the big confrontation. This is the decisive political moment. Obama is prepping the battlefield.
Will the GOP win, lose, fold, get clobbered and not know what happened? Or will they call Obama out, see him and raise him, and make their case to the American people? Do the American people really care about the fiscal insanity and national bankruptcy? Or will the people who personally lose from the budget cuts have all the energy and outrage? Does the GOP have the courage to push ahead, no matter what?
Lenin said there are decades where nothing happens, then there are weeks where decades happen. We are heading into months where decades are going to happen.
Stay tuned.
UPDATE: Instapundit responds: “It’s not 1995 anymore, though.” Yes. True. I agree. It is better now. But, is it better enough? Boehner is not an eccentric visionary like Gingrich, and I cannot see him and McConnell getting punked by Obama the way Clinton did to Gingrich. Obama is not nearly as good as Clinton. The GOP members are, I think, much wiser and more realistic than the hopeful but ultimately naive class of 1994. The new crew is committed to reform, and they have the example of 1995 in front of them. May they learn the right tactical lessons. Plus, things are just way worse now. There is more at stake.
Interesting times, baby.
UPDATE II: Powerline gets it:
Obama’s game is transparent, isn’t it? He is playing a game of chicken. He puts forward a series of proposals that he knows are more or less insane; but he also believes that Republicans will come to his rescue. They, not being wholly irresponsible, will come up with plans to reform entitlements–like, for example, the Ryan Roadmap. Ultimately, some combination of those plans will be implemented because the alternative is the collapse, not just of the government of the United States, but of the country itself. But Obama thinks the GOP’s reforms will be unpopular, and he will be able to demagogue them, thus having his cake and eating it too. Is that leadership? Of course not. But it is the very essence of Barack Obama.
(Emphasis added.) Yes. That’s it. That’s the trap.
Let’s see the GOP, and the Tea Party, and everyone else who wants this mess really fixed work this problem, avoid the trap, and turn the table on Obama and his allies.
Thinking caps on, team.
UPDATE III: Good pushback in the comments. Message: 1995 =/= 2011. OK. Groovy. So, let’s see a good outcome here. It is doable.
UPDATE IV: Cool: Stanley Kurtz link, mostly agreeing with me. He says my “vision of permanent Republican meltdown is overdrawn.” Maybe so. But I would rather the GOP and the Tea Party overestimate the hazard of the coming confrontation with Obama than not be aware it exists, as seemed to be the case in the initial round of responses to Obama’s budget proposal. Obama’s budget is not a failure of leadership, or a lack of imagination, or something that happened in a fit of absence of mind. It is a deliberate political play, with a goal of creating useful issues for 2012, breaking up and defeating the GOP opposition, reversing 2010, getting reelected, and continuing to expand the power and scope of government. Will it work? I hope not. But if we take it seriously for what it is, the odds of it working are greatly reduced. (I very much want to read Kurtz’s book Radical-in-Chief, but right now the pile of books in front of it is ceiling-high.)
UPDATE V: Good post from Keith Hennessey (via/Instapundit). Hennessey says:
The President is choosing both a policy path and a campaign strategy. He is betting that having no proposal to address the looming fiscal crisis is better for his reelection prospects than having one.
This is exactly right. Hennessey also says:
The President has made his strategic choice: we are headed toward a two year fiscal stalemate in a newly balanced Washington.
But this is wrong. It will not be a stalemate. It will be an open conflict. 1995 was not a stalemate, it was a duel, and Gingrich and the GOP lost. The GOP in 2011 will have to propose cuts, and Obama is going to attack them for each and every one, and blame them for every bit of hardship that any cuts impose on anyone. The President is betting that Mancur Olson is right, and that focused opposition will defeat inchoate and widespread public interest, as usual. Is 2011 “different”? Is it “different” enough? Cue portentious music: On that question turns the fate of our Republic.
