One downer on a good night: Wisconsin Dems possibly take senate

The only thing that went wrong last night was that Republicans possibly lost control of the state senate.

Democrats appeared to have assumed control of the state Senate with results posted early Wednesday showing former Sen. John Lehman (D-Racine) defeating incumbent Van Wanggaard in a tight race.
Republicans held on to three other state Senate seats in Tuesday's recall voting. Democratic challengers lost recalls bids against Sens. Scott Fitzgerald (R-Juneau) and Terry Moulton (R-Chippewa Falls.).
Rep. Jerry Petrowski (R-Stettin) was elected to fill the vacancy left by Sen. Pam Galloway (R-Wausau), who resigned earlier this year after opponents gathered enough signatures to initiate a recall election.
All eyes Wednesday will be on the 21st District. Results posted early Wednesday showed Lehman with 36,255 votes to 35,476 for Wanggaard with 100% of precincts reporting. The margin of 779 could bring a recount.

“They could run a recall election against him in 1 year, and with the new district drawing, they could easily beat him.”

Yes, of course. But isn’t the constitutional rule that one may not start gathering signatures for a recall until one year has passed since the person’s term began? Lehman’s term presumably will begin when he is declared the winner in a final and unappealable judgment, or maybe when his credentials are accepted by the Senate (I’m not sure). If it’s the former, one wouldn’t be able to commence gathering signatures for his recall until June 2013 at the earliest; given that it takes a few months for the recall process to play itself out (what with signature certification, the primary and all), the recall election and swearing in wouldn’t take place until January of 2014 at the earliest; would the GOP really go through with that just to have a 5-vote majority instead of a 19-14 majority instead of an 18-15 majority for a single year? And if the start date is deemed to be when Lehman has his credentials accepted by the Senate, that means that they might not be able to start gathering signatures until January 2014, and the new senator wouldn’t take office at all (since the recall election wouldn’t be held until the senate had adjourned for the year prior to the November 2014 general election, when the seat would be up). So I seriously doubt that the GOP will risk the negative publicity of a recall election for such a limited benefit.

“Of course, that assumes a judge doesn’t force them to run the recall using the old maps.”

That’s certainly an open question. When the GOP legislature approved the law adopting the new redistricting maps, it unfortunately provided that the new maps would not be used until the next general election. Had the law stated that they would apply for any election for offices with a term that would extend beyond January 2, 2013, and had such clause been deemed constitutional (which I don’t see why it wouldn’t), then the Wanggaard recall would have had to be held under the SD’s new (overwhelmingly Republican) lines, and the Democrats wouldn’t even have bothered. But with the way the law is written, you’re right, maybe a judge would rule that the new maps can’t be used until the election for the term commencing January 2015.

“Map changes for staggered elections are strange, because it means some people don’t get to vote at all, and others get to vote for their new representative while another representative they voted for remains in office.”

I am of the belief that not requiring all districts to hold elections after decennial redistricting violates the principle of one-man, one-vote and the voting rights of the persons who were moved from a district that last held an election in 2008 to one whose next election won’t be until 2014.

Additionally, the ability to renumber districts during redistricting, combined with the staggered elections, would have allowed the legislature to declare, for example, that the SD-22 that is up in 2012 (represented by Robert Wirch) now comprised the rural and suburban areas in Racine and Kenosha Counties, which would result in the GOP picking up the seat in 2012, while allowing Wanggaard to stay until 2014 as senator of an SD-21 that would include urban Racine and Kenosha (and which would vote him out in 2014, but not until the GOP held both Racine/Kenosha seats for two years).

WI should amend its constitution so that, like other states with staggered senate elections, districts that aren’t up for a four-year term in the election following redistricting have to hold an election for a two-year term that would place the seat back on its normal schedule. So, for example, the SD-21, which held its last election in 2010, would hold an election for a two-year term in 2012 (which would allow it to hold an election for a four-year term in 2014, 2018, 2022, etc.), while the SD-22, which last had an election in 2008, would hold a regular election for a four-year term in 2012 (and then would hold elections for four-year terms in 2016 and 2020, but, after the lines are redraewn again, would hold an election for a two-year term in 2022).

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