On a conference call with reporters on Friday, Wisconsin Democrats announced that they will seek to become a party in the lawsuit that the state Republicans filed on Thursday, in which the GOP claimed that aspects of the recall process targeting Gov. Scott Walker are a violation of Walker’s rights.
“Next week, the Democratic Party of Wisconsin will file a motion to intervene in the spurious and flailing lawsuit in Waukesha by Scott Walker’s dead-end Republican allies trying to forestall the inevitable recall against him,” state party chair Mike Tate announced.
“Let’s call this what it is,” Tate added, “another pathetic attempt by Walker and the Republicans to avoid facing accountability by the people of Wisconsin.”
The state GOP’s lawsuit, filed Thursday afternoon, claims that Walker’s 14th Amendment rights of Equal Protection are violated by putting a burden on his campaign to review and challenge petition signatures within a ten-day period.
(The same procedures were used in a series of state Senate recalls, on both sides of the aisle, earlier this year.)
TPM asked Tate whether there was serious concern on the Dems’ part, that the recall might be delayed by the lawsuit.
“I think it’s unlikely. I think this is just a frivolous attempt, and a judge will see it as such,” Tate responded. “This is clearly, Scott Walker knows he is losing, if the election were held today he would lose. And so he’s trying to attack the process and change the subject, and this is just another example of that.”
Earlier Thursday, the Dems announced that they had collected over 507,000 signatures in 30 days, getting very close to the legal threshold of just over 540,000 signatures in 60 days. (They are also working towards a goal of 720,000 total, in order to have an absolute buffer against disqualification.) The party also told TPM that this 507,000 figure takes into account also own efforts to weed out bad signatures.
Eric Kleefeld
Eric Kleefeld joined TPM as an intern for the final months of the 2006 midterm elections, and then kept showing up for work. His other interests include guitars, old comic books and the politics of various English-speaking countries.
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