2011 Wisconsin Senate recall elections

Act 10

In the 2010 elections, Republicans won a trifecta for the first time since 1994. Using this newly-gained trifecta, Republicans began enacting a series of highly controversial pieces of legislation, with the chief among them being Wisconsin Act 10. Act 10, also known as the "Budget Repair Bill," sought to eliminate the collective bargaining rights of certain public-sector unions–with exemptions for certain public safety unions such as police, fire fighters, and sheriffs deputies being established.^[1] Supporters of the law claimed that the law would help balance the state's budget.^[2] The law also made it more difficult to certify and maintain a public employee union and made it more difficult for unions to collect dues from their members.^[3]

The law sparked strong backlash from public employees, especially teachers and students, who staged protests of the legislation across the state.

Legislative walkout

To prevent passage of the bill, all 14 Democratic members of the Wisconsin State Senate left the state of Wisconsin and traveled to Illinois in order to delay a vote on the bill and deprive the chamber of a quorum to prevent the passage of the bill. Republicans managed to pass the bill anyway the next month, but the fallout from the bill's passage led to the attempted recall of governor Scott Walker and the successful recall of multiple members of the Senate in 2011 and 2012.

Due to concerns that Republicans had been attempting to pass the Budget Repair bill without scheduling enough time for public review and debate, Senate Minority Leader Mark Miller led the entire Senate Democratic caucus in fleeing the state to prevent the quorum necessary for a vote on the bill.

Voters attempted to put 16 state senators up for recall, eight Democrats and eight Republicans, because of the budget bill proposed by Governor Scott Walker and circumstances surrounding it.^[4] Republicans targeted Democrats for leaving the state for three weeks to prevent the bill from receiving a vote, while Democrats targeted Republicans for voting to significantly limit public employee collective bargaining.^[5] Scholars could cite only three times in American history when more than one state legislator has been recalled at roughly the same time over the same issue.^[6]

The Wisconsin Government Accountability Board (GAB) certified six recall petitions filed against Republican senators^[7] and three recall petitions filed against Democratic senators. Democrats needed a net gain of three seats to take control of the Senate. Republicans needed a net gain of one seat to gain a quorum-proof supermajority on fiscal spending.^[8][9] Of the nine recall elections, Democrats retained all three of their challenged seats; Republicans saw two of their six challenged seats recalled thus they retained their majority in and control of the State Senate, albeit by a slightly narrower margin.^[10]

More than $35 million was spent on the recall races. The spending on the nine races compares to $19.3 million spent in 2010's 115 legislative races, and approached the $37.4 million spent in the race for governor.^[10]

Recall petitions

'Placeholder' candidates

In all six Democratic-led recall attempts against Republican Senators, the Republican Party organized and supported the nominations of 'placeholder' candidates in the Democratic primaries (called "Fake Democrats" by some). According to the Republican Party of Wisconsin, the purpose of the placeholder candidates was to force Democratic primaries and delay the general election, allowing their incumbent Senators to have additional time to campaign.^[12] Robocalls were sent out to 20,000 conservative voters for candidate Isaac Weix in an effort to get Republicans to cross over and vote in the primary.^[13] All the placeholder candidates were defeated.

The cost to the state was estimated to be more than $475,000.^[14]

Recall controversies

Later that month, Americans for Prosperity, a conservative group, began sending absentee ballots to Democratic voters in all districts undergoing recall elections,^[15] with instructions to return the ballots to the city clerk before August 11 even though the recall election itself is being held August 9 in those districts.^[16] In addition, the voters were instructed to return the ballots to what was claimed to be "the absentee ballot processing center", but was actually a mailing address for conservative group Wisconsin Family Action.^[17][18]

On July 29, the Government Accountability Board criticized a Republican-allied voter ID advocacy group We're Watching Wisconsin Elections,^[19][20] for publishing reference guides for election observers that featured "numerous significant and factual errors."^[21] For example, the reference guides stated that student voters using their college ID must present "a tuition receipt with their name and address on it dated within the last 9 months".^[22] Wisconsin voter ID law does not actually require such a receipt.^[23][24]

Aftermath

The first general recall election also took place in that month, with Democratic Senator Dave Hansen retaining his seat. Six general elections took place on August 9 resulting in four Republican senators retaining their seats and two being defeated with Republicans keeping a majority in the Wisconsin Senate.^[25] Two Democratic incumbents (Wirch, Holperin) prevailed in their own recall races on August 16, which left Republicans with a net one-vote majority in the Wisconsin Senate.^[26]

Close results

Seats where the margin of victory was under 10%:

1. State Senate district 18, 2.27% (gain)
2. State Senate district 14, 4.31%
3. State Senate district 8, 7.31%

District 2

Incumbent Republican Robert Cowles ran for re-election. He defeated Democrat Nancy Nusbaum and was retained in office.

District 8

Incumbent Republican Alberta Darling ran for re-election. She defeated Democrat Sandy Pasch and was retained in office.

On August 1, the Republican Party of Wisconsin filed a complaint with the Government Accountability Board accusing Sandy Pasch's campaign of possible collusion with the group Citizen Action of Wisconsin, of which Pasch is a member of the board of directors.^[27] Pasch claimed she had had no contact with anyone at Citizen Action regarding any political activities.^[28] Gillian Morris, a spokeswoman for the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, and Robert Kraig, executive director of Citizen Action both stated that there was no coordination whatsoever between Pasch in the recall election, and Citizen Action.^[29]

District 10

Incumbent Republican Sheila Harsdorf ran for re-election. She defeated Democrat Shelly Moore and was retained in office.

District 12

Incumbent Democrat Jim Holperin ran for re-election. He defeated Republican Kim Simac and was retained in office

District 14

Incumbent Republican Luther Olsen ran for re-election. He defeated Democratic state representative Fred Clark by a four-point margin and was retained in office

District 18

Incumbent Republican Randy Hopper ran for re-election. He was defeated by Democratic Oshkosh deputy mayor Jessica King by a three-point margin and recalled from office.

District 22

Incumbent Democrat Robert Wirch ran for re-election. He defeated Republican Jonathan Steitz by a 15-point margin and was retained in office.

District 30

Incumbent Democrat Dave Hansen ran for re-election. He defeated Republican recall organizer David VanderLeest by a wide margin and was retained in office

Initially, Republican state representative John Nygren ran to face Hansen in the recall. At the end of the filing period he had filed 424 qualifying voter signatures, but during the signature challenge period, 39 signatures were challenged as not being from the 30th district, and 26 signatures were ruled to be invalid.^[30] As a result of Nygren's disqualification, VanderLeest was the only Republican candidate to face Hansen. After being disqualified from the ballot, Nygren filed a lawsuit in Dane County Court seeking to overturn the board's decision, but was unsuccessful.^[31][32]

District 32

Incumbent Republican Dan Kapanke ran for re-election. He was defeated by Democratic state representative Jennifer Shilling by a 10-point margin and recalled from office.