A conservative group launched recall efforts against two more state senators on Monday in reaction to the votes against mining reform legislation that failed to pass at the end of the legislative session.

At the Government Accountability Board’s office Monday morning, two members of Citizens for Responsible Government, an organization that aims to elect fiscally conservative candidates, registered political action committees to recall Sen. Robert Jauch, D-Poplar, and Sen. Dale Schultz, R-Richland Center.

The committee against Jauch completed the final stages of the recall registration process on Monday morning, while the committee against Schultz was filing papers to begin an exploratory committee for a recall election.

Jauch sent a letter to Gov. Walker on Monday, calling on him to establish a bipartisan panel with members from each house to reach a compromise on the issue.

In the letter, Jauch said that there is substantial agreement between the two plans that currently exist and he knows that Schultz would join him in his effort to achieve mining regulatory reform.

Shirl LaBarre, a CRG member who is leading the efforts against Jauch, said she was representing the citizens of northern Wisconsin who were angered by Jauch’s vote against the mining bill.

She said when the mining company pulled out of the proposal, the state lost 700 jobs, and that loss falls on the senators.

“[Jauch’s] compromise bill was not a compromise. It was my way or the highway, and the mining company took the highway,” LaBarre said.

The mining company, Geogebic Taconite, abolished its $1.5 billion mining project in Iron and Ashland counties last week after frustration with the Senate’s rejection of the mining bill.

According to the Legislative Reference Bureau’s analysis, the bill would decrease current Department of Natural Resource regulations for ferrous minerals and streamline the permitting and public hearing process for proposed mining projects.

LaBarre said 15,270 signatures would be needed to trigger the election and that the group would begin collecting signatures when she left the GAB’s offices on Monday.

When asked how the movement would be manifested, LaBarre said the movement would focus on social media and rallies. 

LaBarre said if Jauch was working in the private sector, he would have been fired by now.

“Mining is our history, our culture and our future, and he just threw that down the toilet. And that’s coming from a plumber,” LaBarre said.

CRG member Dan Curran also met at the GAB Monday to file paperwork to begin an exploratory effort against Schultz. Curran said it would be a one-issue effort at this point.

“We were looking for jobs in Wisconsin and we feel it went to a vote because they didn’t want to give credit to Governor (Scott) Walker for jobs,” Curran said. “From my conversation with Schultz’s office, he said his main concern was about environmental regulations, even though we have six federal agencies plus the state [Department of Natural Resources] to control that.”

Curran said, in similarity to LaBarre’s committee, the efforts to recall Shultz would focus on rallies as the main way of collecting signatures.

When Curran was asked if he would end the recall efforts if a special session passed mining legislation reform, he said he had not thought deeply about the possibility, so he could not give a solid answer.

Neither Jauch nor Schultz returned calls from The Badger Herald.