The Wisconsin Recall – A Commentary

The Madison Conservative had intended these coming weeks, starting last week and continuing today, to present what it believes to be the planks of a substantive platform for this presidential election year.

The coming recall vote this Tuesday in Wisconsin however has necessitated a delay in the continuing presentation of that platform so that the very real and critical issues surrounding this bit of political theater may be adequately addressed, for they deal with issues at the heart of American democratic self-rule.

The actual merits behind the recall election are not particularly salient at this point. The special election recall vote has been placed on the ballot and thus must be dealt with within that given reality.

The imperative for a recall election must be based on serious grounds of governance malfeasance. The United States Constitution calls for the removal of presidents and jurists for acts of treason and for high crimes and misdemeanors. The arguments given for utilizing the recall option in Wisconsin are based solely upon disagreements on policy. The main thrust of the argument against the governor is that he has decided to emasculate the unions in his state by removing the rights to collective bargaining by various public employee unions.

Without discussing in detail the merits of the argument being presented by the opposition, the Madison Conservative does pose the following query relative to the rights of collective bargaining:

Exactly who are the public unions bargaining with? In private business, the unions negotiate with management. Public unions can only negotiate with the people and who is it that is speaking for the best interests of the populace? Politicians, who seem to want to curry electoral support and favor with the unions and so bestow contracts that would normally not pass the laugh test in the private business community.

Consider what would be the result if the recall election is successful and the Wisconsin governor is removed from office for no other reason than the hope for short term political advantage by his opponents. We would no longer have elected officials who would act with political courage to deal with the very real problems our local, state and federal governments are grappling with today.

No sane individual would dare act against the popular will with the intent of serving the public good. True leadership is defined as leading a group towards what you believe to be right in the face of popular opposition.

This nation has constitutionally created recall mechanisms – they are called Election Day. That is the time for the electorate to makeits determination on the policies of their elected officials and not randomly because political opponents would rather squander precious financial resources – the Wisconsin recall special election is estimated to cost the state in the area of several million dollars – in the name of political sport.

The special interests have pumped untold millions into the election both in support and in opposition. These nefarious entities of both political extremes are predominantly out of state and are interested only in advancing their particular ideologies, the public good be damned.

There are rare but necessary times to invoke a recall election.

This is not one of them, and the Wisconsin electorate must rail against it, with the greater American electorate fully supporting that effort.