Wisconsin needs referendums, not recalls. Ohio voted yesterday in a nonpartisan issue referendum to repeal a collective bargaining bill similar to the one passed in Madison earlier this year. The referendum provided the taxpayers an opportunity to respond directly to the union busting legislation in a single vote.
Wisconsin voters deserve such a cost-effective measure instead of this clumsy apparatus of recalls. Wisconsin spent more than $2 million this year on the many Senate recall elections, and should “Recall Walker” get the necessary signatures, millions more will be spent next year. Ohio, on the other hand, had a single voting day, cost much less and received a clear answer to the question: What do the citizens think about limiting collective bargaining?
Yet in Wisconsin, where this question has been at the center of the political conversation for the past 10 months, it remains impossible to answer. A recall can only remove a person; it cannot solve an issue. The Senate recalls this summer were not about the individual senators, but about who would control the state Senate. So a disagreement on a specific issue is blown up into a recall movement on an entire party.
The organizers gathering signatures can tell everyone this is about collective bargaining, and for the people signing it can be. For the Republicans though, or whoever is facing the recall, it becomes about maintaining numbers, holding on to the majority to be able to continue governing. For the attacked party, the goal of a recall becomes not dealing with an issue but remaining in power.
About one-third of those who voted to repeal the law in Ohio were Republican, casting their ballot in what ended up being a unifying moment for the state. I’m not saying the same amount of Republican voters here think the collective bargaining bill is bad, but I do think they haven’t had the opportunity to talk about the issue outside of an election cycle. In the nonpartisan referendum, no permanent power is at stake, making it easier to stay away from big politics and focus on specific policy.
Neither recalls nor referendums are a daily occurrence. Both require the gathering of large amounts of signatures to start, but when looking at them side-by-side, referendums are clearly superior for voters. A single referendum vote is cheaper than numerous individual recalls and allows voters to speak to a specific issue, instead of politicians and parties at large.
Where recalls have forced the conversation away from the issue, referendums bring the issue to the front and deliver a clear answer. That’s all anyone on either side should be interested in – knowing what we as a state want for our state workers in collective bargaining. Recalls should not be launched on an issue-by-issue basis; this does nothing to address the issues themselves but merely creates another cycle of elections that further divides voters.
What Wisconsin citizens deserve after what happened this year is a chance to have their voice heard, and not in a bunch of unofficial polls. Instead of more elections, costing the taxpayer and failing to specifically address the issue, let’s vote on what we are actually talking about. If the people feel strongly enough about a specific issue that it garners hundreds of thousands of signatures, then let’s vote and be done with it.
John Waters ([email protected]) is a junior majoring in journalism.
