A Good Man Who Can't Be Kept Down

News from your faithful Peasant's Badger State:
In Wisconsin Senate District 21, which includes
Racine, former Republican State Senator Van
Wangaard is running again for the seat he held
but lost in a controversial recall election in 2010,
which is referred to in my home state as The Year
of the Recall. This was the year in which several
state legislators from both parties, as well as Gov.
Scott Walker and Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch were
subjected to recalls themselves. Democrats wanted
to recall Walker, Kleefisch, Wangaard, and other
GOP elected officials in Madison for passing
Act 10, the revolutionary budget reform act which
clipped the public employee unions' wings concern-
ing their impact on Wisconsin's budget and taxes;
Republicans wanted to recall key Democrats in the
capitol for fleeing the state to deny the GOP
majority a quorum in order to pass Act 10 and
related measures.

Today's post is about Van Wangaard and his campaign
to regain the seat in my state's Senate which he lost in
a heated recall election with some shenanigans along
the way. Wangaard, a former Racine police investigator
and a solid conservative, challenged incumbent Democrat
Jim Lehman for the District 21 Senate seat in 2010, the
big Republican year in which the party won both the
Assembly and the Senate in Wisconsin and Scott Walker
was elected governor, and the GOP won big in many other
state races around the country while also winning the
House of Representatives in Congress. The brutal battle
between Wangaard and Lehman ended with Wangaard
winning the seat in a close contest, taking 52.5% of the
vote. Lehman and the district's Dems would have none
of it; when they geared up to recall Walker et. al. they also
added Van Wangaard to their hit list, and nominated Lehman
to set up a rematch.

Under Wisconsin law, the state's Government Accountability
Board (GAB) has 31 days to determine if enough valid sig-
natures have been submitted to mandate a recall election.
But with 1.9 million signatures to review for six recalls,
the GAB asked Judge Richard Niess of Dane County,
where capital city of Madison resides for an extension.
The judge granted the GAB an additional 30 days. Now,
the GAB has, for the last few years, been mostly made up
of Democrats appointed by the Gov. Walker's Democrat
predecessor Jim Doyle, and have long been accused of
acting in a partisan fashion on many issues. The state,
with a specially-created software, had workers scan the
petitions into computers and the software read the names,
then converted them into type. Next, a human operator
verified the name, correcting any errors before it was then
entered into the GAB database.

Wangaard filed a signature challenge on February 9, 2013,
eight months after the election. He questioned 7,491 of the
signatures, stating that they were either listed more than
once, or were illegible, or the signers were not of the legal
voting age (18), or otherwise ineligible to vote. Also note-
worthy, the recall election took place in the "old" district,
which was the district before the 2010 redistricting that
changed it from a 60-40 Democrat district to a 70-30
Republican one. This was ordered by a Democrat judge
(big surprise!) to be so conducted. Unofficial results had
Lehman winning by 779 votes, and Wangaard called for a
recount which added 40 more votes to Lehman's original
vote tally, giving him the election, thus returning him to
the Senate. But Van Wangaard is running again this year
and interestingly enough, John Lehman is giving up the
seat to seek a statewide office(!). While the Dems choose
a new nominee, John Stitz, a Republican businessman from
Racine, is challenging Wangaard for the Republican nod
to run for the 21st District Senate seat.

Both GOP candidates are accentuating economic issues in
their campaigns. Van Wangaard is the only one of the two
with public office experience, and has authored a solidly
conservative economic issues record of low taxes, private
sector growth and budget reduction while also backing
legislation helping communities to have safer environs.
One example of this is Wangaard's authoring the Castle
Doctrine Bill, which gives residents the right to attempt
defense of themselves, their families, and their property
if an intruder invades. In addition, Wangaard co-authored
the state's Concealed Carry Law, which was passed by
both houses and signed by Gov. Walker, making Wisconsin
the nation's 49th state to legalize concealing gun on one's
person while carrying the weapon. On abortion, Wangaard
is solidly pro-life and has proven himself to be a major
thorn in the side of Planned Parenthood, working to
prohibit receiving state health grants. For these stands and
others of this conservative vein Van Wangaard has received
the support of the Racine Tea Party PAC, and your discerning
Peasant congratulates the Racine Tea Partiers for making a
splendid choice!

Although Jonathan Stitz is a good candidate and an honorable
man, The Peasant endorses Van Wangaard for the Wisconsin
District 21 Republican State Senate nomination and election to
that office. He is experienced, savvy in the ways of Madison,
and is the best candidate to serve the interests and needs of
the people of this district as well as to be a most competent,
and reliable ally for Gov. Walker. I met Van Wangaard when
I attended the Wisconsin Republican Convention in Milwaukee
on May 2, and was impressed by his command of the issues
as well as his enthusiasm for running again for the seat that
he lost under questionable circumstances. Van Wangaard is
proof that you can't keep a good man down!


MEM