Walker: Recall is for Misconduct in Office... Not Applicable for Him

Gov. Scott Walker is now parroting the Republican talking point of intentionally confusing Wisconsin's voters by conflating Wisconsin's impeachment law with Wisconsin's recall law.

Here is what Gov. Walker said yesterday during a Wisconsin Eye interview:

I think the recall process, the statute out there, is really narrowly targeted for people whose situation of, uh, misconduct in office and things of that nature.

What Walker is talking about is impeachment and according to the Wisconsin Constitution, the Assembly has the power to impeach any civil officers, including state senators and the governor, for misconduct in office:

The assembly shall have the power of impeaching all civil officers of this state for corrupt conduct in office, or for crimes and misdemeanors;

Wisconsin also has a recall law. The recall is intended as a check on elected officials by the electorate. There is no mention of misconduct as grounds for a recall. The ONLY standard mentioned in the constition for triggering a recall is that enough voters are angery enough to sign a recall petition. That's it.

In fact, the current recall situation is EXACTLY what the recall was intended to address: A governor and a legislator significantly overreaching and doing so shortly after an election where they never mentioned the significant overreach.

But, if Walker does want us to recall him for misconduct in office, I'm sure we can oblige him on that front as well. Let's see... in few short months he has managed to illegally refuse to comply with numerous open records requests, illegally coordinated campaign advertising with someone he believed to be David Koch, unethically considered planting "trouble makers" and injuring peaceful protestors, illegally locked the capitol, illegally held a campaign strategy session with GOP pollster Frank Luntz in the public's state capitol, illegally had the Senate vote without 24 hours notice and violated a court order in having the LRB publish the collective bargaining bill.

Anyway you slice it, Scotty, the recall was made with knuckleheads like you in mind.