Eric Kleefeld March 14, 2011, 2:59 PM

In the latest development in Wisconsin, after the passage of Republican Gov. Scott Walker’s new law curtailing public employee unions, state Democrats claim that they have reached 45% of their goal for petition signatures to recall eight Republican state Senators, Greg Sargent reports.

In the wake of last week’s action by the state GOP leaders to pass the bill, Democrats have pledged to quickly recall the Republican members of the state Senate who are eligible, under the state law requiring at least one year of a term to be have been completed, and then to go after Walker next year.

A recall requires collecting signatures equal to at least 25 percent of the total votes in the previous gubernatorial election within the given district — a high bar. But Democrats claim they’re already almost halfway to their goal, which involves both that 25% number plus an unspecified cushion against bad signatures, after only about two weeks of circulating petitions.

There is, of course, an obvious caveat: Even taking the Dems at their word on the signatures gathered so far, it’s possible that they could have so far grabbed the low-hanging fruit — that first wave of supporters who are so adamantly against Walker and the Republicans that they rushed to sign the papers when they were circulated.

Thus, in order to pull off these recalls, Democrats will have to keep the pace going in the weeks to come.

Recall, Scott Walker, Wisconsin , Wisconsin Protests, Wisconsin State Legislature