TALKING POINTS MEMO: Wisconsin Democrats are now going on the offense in the fight over Republican Gov. Scott Walker’s budget proposal and its anti-public employee union provisions. An e-mail to the party’s supporter list, sent out Wednesday, seeks fundraising to mobilize recalls against Republican state senators — with the goal of taking a majority in the chamber. […] Wisconsin state senators serve four-year terms, with half of them up every two years. Wisconsin does have a recall law, though, with the condition that a recall cannot begin until at least one year into a term. Under that stipulation, eight out of 19 of the GOP state senators would be eligible for a recall election, if the signature requirements were met (25 percent of the total votes in the district in the previous race for governor, collected within 60 days). “Make no mistake, these Republican Senators are vulnerable to recall for their radical partisan overreach,” writes state Dem chair Mike Tate. “Senator Randy Hopper won his last election by just 184 votes. And Alberta Darling won her last race by only 1,007. By recalling just three of the eight Senators we are targeting, we can regain control of the Senate.” MORE
RELATED: In a PPP poll released Monday, a majority of registered Wisconsin voters say that in a hypothetical re-do of last year’s gubernatorial election, they would vote for Democrat Tom Barrett, whom Walker defeated in November. That finding comes as Walker continues to stand firm on his budget proposals that would strip most state public employees of long-held collective bargaining rights. MORE