WisPolitics reports that Dane County judge John Markson has approved a plan put forth by the Government Accountability Board that will allow it to schedule recall elections for the first eight state Senators (Republicans Dan Kapanke, Randy Hopper, Luther Olsen, Shelia Harsdorf and Alberta Darling, and Democrats Dave Hansen, Jim Holperin and Robert Wirch) on what is anticipated to be July 12 by allowing an extension of the 31-day deadlines for the GAB to issue a certificate of sufficiency (or insufficiency) on the various recalls to a date, between May 31 and June 3, that would potentially allow the GAB to schedule the elections on a single day. I do have to note that if the GAB delayed the issuance of a certificate of sufficiency beyond May 31, that election date would be pushed to July 19.
Further, while the recall effort against Republican Senator Robert Cowles was not part of the court petition, the by-the-statutes timeline would also put his recall election on July 12. However, GAB director Kevin Kennedy said that the GAB would likely also seek an extension of the timeline for that case.
Had the judge not approved the GAB plan, the recall elections would have been scattered across the calendar. Kapanke’s election would have been on June 14, Hopper’s on June 21, Darling’s, Hansen’s, Harsdorf’s, Holperin’s, Olsen’s and Wirch’s on July 5, and Cowles’ on July 12. That would have allowed the Democrats to concentrate all their resources on single districts three different times, while it would also have put the bulk of the elections, and all of the elections against the Democrats, on a holiday week, specifically the day after Independence Day.
So much for the DPW “rolling recall” plan.
