Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s campaign team scored a small victory in a Wisconsin court room Thursday, as Waukesha County Circuit Judge J. Mac Davis ruled against Walker recall groups seeking an intervention in his campaign team’s lawsuit against the Wisconsin Government Accountability Board, The Milwaukee Wisconsin Journal-Sentinnel reports.
“Friends of Scott Walker,” Mr. Walker’s Wisconsin state campaign committee and Wisconsin Republican Party Director Stephan Thompson filed a lawsuit against the Wisconsin GAB two weeks ago, requesting that the board be more thorough in its review of petition signatures.
They claim that the Wisconsin GAB violated the Wisconsin state constitution by publicly announcing that it will not be reviewing the petitions for duplicate signatures, bogus names or illegible street addresses.
Judge Davis cited the following reasons for denying the recall groups intervention.
“The need for speed in the case, with the signatures coming in by Jan. 17; the possibility for ‘chaos’ or a ‘free-for-all’ if the new parties were allowed into the case; and that the recall groups’ position will be adequately represented by the accountability board and its lawyers,” according to The MWJS.
Recall groups launched their recall campaigns against Governor Walker in November, regarding his decision to implement strict limitations to public-employee collective bargaining rights in Wisconsin earlier this year.
Mr. Walker was recently quoted by Fox News calling the recall efforts “unusual,” and claimed their are petitioners signing multiple signatures completely disregarding the proper recall process.
“The whole process is pretty unusual,” Mr. Walker said Tuesday in an appearance on Fox News.
“We had one of the local affiliates here [reporting] about someone signing it, proudly saying they signed 80 different recall petitions. As we see it, you should only be able to sign it once and only once, and it should be for a legal citizen,” the Wisconsin governor added.
The recall groups would need a total of 540,208 valid signatures by January 17th in order to force the election. According to RecallScottWalker.info, recall groups have collected over 500,000 signatures as of last week.
The next hearing date in the court case for Mr. Walker’s verification efforts will be January 5th.
“This is the kind of case in which timeliness is especially weighty and critical,” Judge Davis said Thursday.
