Our usual practice at LittleChuteMatters.org is to avoid endorsing candidates for office. Instead, we try to encourage debate about public policy issues that matter to our community, rather than endorsing individual candidates in their bids for public office.

But today, I’ll hang my editor’s hat on the hatrack over in the corner, and just write from my sometimes-partisan perspective about Tuesday’s recall election. Even so, because this is such an unusual election, you may find that my reasons for supporting Governor Scott Walker and Lieutenant-Governor Rebecca Kleefisch in Tuesday’s recall election resonate with you regardless of your party affiliation.

So without further ado, here are my three reasons for voting for Governor Walker on Tuesday.
 

Reason #1: This election is about Courage

Scott Walker has made the point this year, in numerous speeches around the state, that this recall election is about Courage. It’s about the Courage that every elected official should have, to clearly state his or her policy goals and objectives, and then actually do what he said he’d do after taking office.

I believe that balancing the state budget is the most important accomplishment of Governor Walker in the time that he’s been governor. That’s my Reason #2 below. But having the Courage to balance a budget that’s been out-of-whack for over a decade, and do so in the face of great opposition, is more important to me that the actual accomplishment of balancing the budget. Because without Scott Walker’s Courage, we never would have arrived at a balanced budget for our state. Which is why Courage is my “Reason #1” and actually Balancing the Budget is “Reason #2”.

Whether or not all of us across the state agree with the direction that Scott Walker has taken is not the point here. There are many people across the state, mostly Democrats, who believe that Governor Walker’s goals are misguided. The point isn’t even about whether or not a majority of people believe Governor Walker is doing a good job. After all, many of us have an itch to be “Armchair Quarterbacks” in politics. The approval rating of many Governors (and Presidents) often drops (sometimes dramatically) after the initial first months of “honeymoon” are over, often because the job is far more difficult than anyone expected. No, the point here is whether or not the Governor “took the bull by the horns” and did what he promised to do, despite the obstacles.

The courage to overcome obstacles in office is a character trait that I want to see in all of my elected representatives. I expect to elect men and women of Courage to work through the difficult and often very trying issues of state. I can’t be in Madison every day, and I can’t become an expert on every issue that comes before the Governor and the Legislature. So I choose people of good character to represent me in Madison, to do a good job in my stead. That’s what it means to be “Represented” by my elected officials in Madison.

But this year has been different. There have been outrageous personal attacks leveled at our elected officials almost daily over the past year. Legislators have had to go home and tell their young children “no, the protesters can’t get inside our home”. Female legislators have had hulking men tower over them and spit on them as they walk into their offices. Male legislators have been subjected to crude and grotesque displays of disdain for their person and their elected office, while at work on the state’s business. When I consider the kind of abuse that our Governor and Legislators have endured, over more than a year’s time, the value of Courage in my elected representatives becomes especially important to me.

Now, it may be true that some of us would rather see courage in our Governor when he’s doing what we want, and would rather see a doubtful, conflicted, indecisive Governor when he’s opposing us. It’s not in our personal best interests to want our adversaries to be strong.

But I maintain that it’s NEVER in the best interest of the State of Wisconsin to have a weak Governor. A weak governor will most likely cave under pressure from powerful groups that represent their own self-interests rather than the overall well-being of the whole state. A weak governor may wait too long to act in a crises, or may “take the easy way out.” A weak governor might put his own personal welfare above his oath of office. In most cases, I would prefer a strong, principled governor that I disagree with, over a weak governor who promises to do what I want but doesn’t follow through.

I agree with Governor Scott Walker that this election is about Courage. It’s about his Courage to follow through on his promises to the people of Wisconsin.
 

Reason #2: Governor Scott Walker balanced the State Budget

The State Budget has been a mess for a decade. Notice that I said a decade. Since 2002 we have had years of meager state surpluses alternating with large deficits. Before 2002, we hadn’t seen state deficits in Wisconsin since the days of Governor Lee Dreyfus (1979-1983, Republican). Governor Tony Earl (1983-1987, Democrat) followed Governor Dreyfus with four years of surpluses. After that, Governor Tommy Thompson (1987-2001, Republican), wielding his famous veto pen, gave the state fourteen consecutive years of budget surpluses. But since Governor Thompson left office in 2001 to serve as Health and Human Services Secretary in Washington, the state has floundered with its budget problems under both a Republican Governor and then a Democratic Governor.

Now it’s true that every state budget has to be passed by the Legislature. The legislature has the power to add to the state’s budgeted expenditures far beyond the tax revenues received by the state, thereby creating a deficit. However, the Governor’s line-item veto power can be used to override the Legislature’s appetite for spending. Governor Tommy Thompson holds the record for exercising his veto pen: over 1900 times during his stay in office. In my opinion, the willingness of a governor to veto excess spending in the budget is the basis for balanced budgets in our state (but see Reason #1: Courage). The failure of a Governor to exercise his veto power, in conjunction with a spendthrift legislature, causes deficits.

Governor Walker balanced the Wisconsin State Budget for the 2011-2013 biennium. He ended the practice of borrowing money from State “savings accounts” designated for special purposes like highway construction and other legally “separate” expenses. And he did this without firing any state employees, public school teachers or municipal employees. Which is quite an accomplishment, with few parallels in the private sector.

I believe that Governor Scott Walker’s budget is not only critical for a return to fiscal sanity, it’s an enormous benefit to the people of Wisconsin. I believe that over the next decade, we will see the fruits of Governor Walker’s fiscal discipline in the growing businesses, additional jobs, and greater overall health of our state economy.
 

Reason #3: The right of the people to recall an elected official is being abused.

I wonder how many people in Wisconsin want to have another recall election in 2013 ?

If Tom Barrett wins the recall race, there is no doubt in my mind that he will face the prospect of a recall election in 2013. There are over a million teed-off Republicans in this state, who feel that the current recall election is a gross abuse of our right to recall a state office-holder. If Tom Barrett wins, how many of those republicans, after stewing for a year, will be willing to sign a recall petition against Tom Barrett? All they need is about 1-in-2 Republicans to sign the Barrett recall petition, and Wisconsin will then see ANOTHER statewide recall election. So what are the odds?

On the other hand, if Governor Walker wins this recall election, he cannot be recalled again. He will finish out his current term undisturbed by recall threats, and then he can run for re-election in 2014.

Now, we need a little perspective here, lest we become hyper-partisan about this whole matter. Remember that the first cries for recalls in 2011 came from Conservatives, who wanted to punish the Democratic Senators who had “Fled the State”, and were “Absent without Leave” when the 2011-2013 budget bill was taken up by the Senate. (Remember that the Senate requires a 60 percent quorum or head-count to vote on the budget bill, and Republicans were one vote shy of that with all of the Democratic Senators absent).  I was quite dubious at the time that having Democratic Senators fleeing the State to avoid a vote on the budget bill rose to the level of “Malfeasance in Office”, which is what I thought the standard was for recalling a public official. Remember that the President of the United States can only be put through an impeachment trial for “Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.” I thought that at best the Democrats’ move was an unusual parliamentary maneuver, and at worst a bit of public-relations grandstanding that had very little chance of derailing the budget process. Delay it yes, but not derail it. And unless there was malfeasance, I didn’t think that recalls were the answer to getting on with the budget process.

Almost immediately after Conservatives called for a recall election for Democratic State Senators though, we saw Liberals return the favor. Liberals wanted to recall several Republican State Senators for altering (some would say dramatically, egregiously altering) the collective bargaining rights of state employees, public school teachers and municipal employees. Again, not criminal activity, that I could see.

So, in the fall of last year, we had a political feud over policy matters, with both sides using the right to recall our elected officials as a bludgeon. And inappropriately so, in my view.

So now, only five months away from the fall general elections, we have another attempt to use the recall of our Governor, Lieutenant-Governor and four State Senators to try to decide policy matters. In my view, this is an inappropriate and expensive way to conduct public policy discussions. I would prefer vigorous, civil debate and the regular election cycle over recall elections. But that’s obviously not in the cards this year.

And it’s not as though Democrats have no way to redress what they see as wrong-headed policies. All that Democrats need to do to halt the damage that they perceive being done to public employee unions is to vote a Democratic majority into the State Assembly. That will kill any new detrimental (as they see it) bill from getting to the Governor’s desk. “Gridlock” on public union matters then becomes the name of the game. And in two years time, while enjoying a balanced budget, Democrats can make their case for returning some collective bargaining rights to state employees. By then they’ll have had the time to figure out how to do this without breaking future state budgets.
 

So, what will be the Verdict in all of this?

My advice, and my plea, to all my readers is to vote for the incumbent Governor and Lieutenant-Governor in Tuesday’s election. For those of you in Senate Districts 13, 21, 23 and 29, I ask you to return your incumbent State Senators to the senate as well. Yes, I know this sounds partisan, because all of the incumbents are Republicans. But remember, next time it may be Democratic officials that will face a recall over policy matters. I ask my Democratic friends, “How will this feel when the shoe is on the other foot?” Do we really want to go down the long road of having recall elections every year because a minority of the voting public doesn’t like the candidate that the majority put into elected office?

Let’s return to deciding public policy matters in Wisconsin through the ordinary ballot process. Let’s return to the way it’s been done for over 150 years in Wisconsin. Let’s take the first step on Tuesday by returning all of the incumbents in Tuesday’s election to their rightful office. Let’s say loudly, as the people of Wisconsin, that in the future we will decide public policy matters through the regular election process, not through recall elections.

 

 

Michael