MADISON — While Wisconsin’s unprecedented gubernatorial recall primary election Tuesday offered few surprises, one GOP strategist said it tapped into the pent-up energy from Republicans, who have been forced to stand on the sidelines too long while their embattled governor was under assault.

In trouncing Republican challenger state Capitol protester Arthur Kohl-Riggs, 97 percent to 3 percent, Gov. Scott Walker netted 627,000 votes on his way to a rematch against his 2010 Democratic opponent, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett.

Walker received 38,000 fewer votes than Barrett and Barrett's primary opponents, former Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk, Wisconsin Secretary of State Doug La Follette and state Sen. Kathleen Vinehout, of Alma.

Walker picked up 614,511 in the 2010 Republican primary election, when he faced former U.S. Rep. and current U.S. Senate candidate Mark Neumann.

“The turnout for Gov. Walker was remarkable,” said GOP strategist Mark Graul, of Arena Strategy Group, a political consulting and public relations firm in Madison and Green Bay. “The race was all but uncontested, but to receive 620,000 votes is unprecedented, and it is an incredibly heartening sign for the governor and his supporters.

While Graul cautions reading too much into the primary, the “side show” to the June 5 “main event” general recall election, the strategist said the strong showing for Walker confirms a tremendous swell of enthusiasm and energy by Republicans who want to “defend Gov. Walker and keep him in office.”

Waking giant?

The campaign to recall Walker extends back at least until February 2011, when the governor and the GOP majority in the Legislature rolled out Act 10, the bill — which narrowly became law — curbing collective bargaining for most unionized public employees.

“We would do it now, but we don’t have the opportunity because he has to be in there (office) a year,” American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees President Gerald McEntee told the Huffington Post last winter when asked if the union would try to recall the governor they despise. That was before the Legislature voted on Act 10. “But whether or not we lose this battle, that is one of our possible objectives, to pursue a recall against him.”

That objective was in full force Nov. 15, when the Democratic Party of Wisconsin and liberal political action committee United Wisconsin opened a campaign that would collect more than 900,000 signatures, some 360,000 more than needed to recall the governor.

The anti-Walker movement has in many ways dominated the political spotlight in Wisconsin, from its petition drive and rallies throughout the 60-day collection process to the big media spectacle in January — when members turned in scores of boxes loaded down with petitions — up to the certification and call for recall elections early this spring.

”The first stage of recall, being so one-sided, there was no outlet for other side to show their support for the governor,” said Dan Romportl, executive director of the Committee to Elect a Republican Senate, or CERS. “Primary night was the first time, arguably since last summer, that conservatives could show their support by casting a ballot.”

He said that pent-up Republican energy was reflected at the polls, and that should help the four GOP candidates in the Senate recall elections.

But John McAdams, political science professor at Marquette University in Milwaukee, said primary night turnout is not an indicator of what the general election might hold.

In a deeply divided political state, where recall election polls show a statistical dead heat in Walker versus Barrett, campaigns can take nothing for granted.

Democrats say they aren’t.

National strategy

While his knowledge of Wisconsin geography might be suspect, Democrat political strategist Paul Begala has made a career of knowing red, blue and purple states.

And Begala, part of the political consulting brawn that helped elect Bill Clinton president, has some advice for Wisconsin Dems: Stay unified or die.

“It is only through unity that we will be able to stand up to this unprecedented, unprincipled money machine that Scott Walker has put together,” Begala, regular liberal political consultant on CNN, said in a YouTube video to Wisconsin Democratic Party faithful, posted last month. In the video, he advised recallers they need to take back northern Wisconsin, which he insisted included Sauk County in the southern part of the state.

Walker "has unified his party,” Begala said, a party Begala believes consists of billionaires, ultra-right wingers, “Cro-Magnons and Neanderthals.”

For the record, in 2010 Wisconsin had about 160,000 millionaire households, according to financial analyst firm Deloitte. The report did not list the population of Cro-Magnons or Neanderthals.

Healing wounds

Democrats have faced some serious unity questions in the primary race.

Many of the Badger State's bigger public-sector unions lined up early behind Falk, eschewing any possible run by Barrett, some calling the mayor “Walker Lite,” for his use of Act 10 tools, such as asking Milwaukee city employees to contribute more to their pensions and health insurance, to fill budget gaps.

Mike Tate, Democratic Party of Wisconsin chairman, spoke of unifying forces rallying around Barrett.

"Despite great efforts by the Walker forces to sow disunity, all of our candidates have run honorable races all informed by respect for each other, for the citizens of Wisconsin, and for the belief that it will be through unity that we beat back the mountains of corporate cash that have put our great state in such peril," he said in a statement.

Barrett reportedly was not in attendance at a labor-sponsored unity rally Wednesday night in Madison.

While the coalescing around Barrett appears to have begun in earnest, Romportl said the shortened campaign schedule of the recall could make healing old wounds a tall order. He pointed to last summer’s Senate recalls — when six GOP senators and three Democrats faced elections — as proof.

“That was the most challenging cycle for us,” he said. “Even though we were successful in defending our majority (in the Senate), there was an element of scrambling. To think that the Democrats will have a magic wand waved on election day and that all of this comes together, I just don’t think that is possible is less than four weeks.

And, sure, said state Rep. Greg Smith, R-Overland Park, some people hear him discuss Agenda 21, and the theme music from “Twilight Zone” starts playing in their head.

By Kirsten Adshead | Wisconsin Reporter

MADISON — In upholding the Wisconsin Constitution, election officials are being forced to break the law.

“As you are all well aware, the condensed timing between the recall primary and recall election makes adherence to the statutory dates governing absentee ballot availability impossible to achieve,” Nat Robinson, the Government Accountability Board’s elections division administrator, wrote in a letter to county and municipal clerks Monday. “However, we must make a concerted effort to have ballots available as soon as we possibly can.”

Here’s the problem:

State law requires that absentee ballots be available 21 days before an election.

By the calendar, absentee ballots, then, should be available Monday for the June 5 recall elections involving Gov. Scott Walker, Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch and four GOP state senators.

But in reality, absentee ballots for the recalls won’t be available until at least May 18, after the GAB, which oversees the state’s elections, certifies the results from Tuesday’s primaries.

The GAB plans to certify Tuesday’s recall primaries at 5 p.m. May 17, allowing the required time for local canvassing boards to tally all the votes, including late-arriving absentee ballots and provisional ballots, and allowing for a three-day period during which candidates may request a recount.

The recalls, however, can’t be delayed to enable a three-week absentee-balloting period.

Article XIII, Section 12 of the state constitution requires that a recall primary be held six weeks after a recall election is ordered. The general recall election must be held four weeks after the primary.

“The six-week and four-week deadlines are in the constitution, and they do conflict with some of the statutory language, but the constitution trumps statutes,” GAB spokesman Reid Magney said in an email.

“There is a relatively short timeframe to vote absentee in the recall elections — a regrettable consequence of schedule required by the Wisconsin Constitution and state law,” Magney said.

It's a consequence driven by an unprecedented spate of recall elections, targeting Republicans and driven by the Democratic Party of Wisconsin and its anti-Walker allies.

Absentee ballots have been a constant thorn in the side of election officials in this and other years.

Wisconsin Reporter published an investigative report last month indicating that, for the April election, at least 63 of Wisconsin’s 1,851 municipal clerks missed deadlines, required by the federal Military and Overseas Voter Empowerment Act, for sending out ballots to military voters.

The MOVE Act requires that ballots be sent out at least 47 days before federal elections.

“Unfortunately, because (the upcoming recalls are) a state election, the federal laws do not apply,” said Eric Eversole, executive director of the nonprofit Military Voter Protection Project.

“This is simply a function where people got all fired up to recall the governor, but didn’t think about the short time frame and how that would affect not only military voters but overseas absentee voters,” he said.

Voters living permanently overseas are not allowed to vote in the non-federal recall elections.

Eversole said his organization will consider what it can do to intervene to help service members vote in the recall.

But given constitutional and statutory election schedules, it’s unclear what that might be.

Dane County Deputy Clerk Judy Nowak said absentee ballots for Tuesday’s primary have until 4 p.m. Friday to arrive. Local canvassers will send their primary election results to the state Monday, which prompts the start of a three-day window for candidates to call for recounts, ending at 5 p.m. Thursday, when the GAB will certify the primary election results.

“It’s a two-week window of opportunity” to vote absentee, Nowak said.

Military voters, can request that a ballot be emailed to them.

Last year, the Legislatures passed a law containing a provision  that said only military and overseas voters can have absentee ballots mailed or faxed to them, effective as of the February 2012 elections. 

Military ballots will be accepted until 4 p.m. June 8, but like all absentee ballots, they must be postmarked no later than election day.

M.D. Kittle contributed to this report.

Correction: The original article misidentified which categories of voters are able to have ballots emailed to them.

SPRINGFIELD — The Illinois House voted Wednesday to eliminate a premium-free insurance perk for retired state workers, including university employees, judges and lawmakers.

Senate Bill 1313, which passed by a 74-43 vote, would require retirees to pay for their health insurance, regardless of how long they worked for the state. The pricey perk costs Illinois more than $800 million a year.

“I think this is a good start toward doing the difficult things we have to do — to put the state of Illinois on a path toward fiscal solvency and fiscal responsibility, which is very much needed,” said House Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago, who sponsored the proposal.

State employees with 20 years of service now qualify for premium-free health insurance. The years of service are even lower for judges and General Assembly members, who receive the perk after serving six and four years, respectively.

“Not only are these benefits unaffordable, given today’s fiscal situation, but they are far more generous than those provided by other governments to their employees and those provided by the private sector,” Madigan said.

Madigan acknowledged Illinois is the only state offering free health care to state retirees after 20 years of service.

“We have for years seen this state spend money we didn’t have and make commitments that we could not keep,” said House Minority Leader Tom Cross, R-Oswego. “We are at that point if we do not address retiree health care, pensions, Medicaid, the budget, we will find ourselves where we can no longer fund schools, charge even more for higher education, not be able to protect our communities.”

So far its unknown how much retirees would pay under the new measure. One possibility is having premiums set on a sliding scale based on income.

The legislation places the price-setting power in the hands of the state Department of Central Management Services. The Joint Committee on Administrative Rules would have veto power on any recommendations from the department.

House lawmakers debated the bill for about an hour. Opponents argued it breaks a promise to retirees. Retirees last week in Springfield pointed out that free doesn’t always mean free, and many still have to pay the cost of prescriptions and co-pays.

The bill heads to the Senate.

SPRINGFIELD —  Illinois‘ Senate leader wants to require publicly traded corporations operating in the state to disclose certain financial information, an idea Republicans and business groups criticized.

Senate President John Cullerton, D-Chicago, introduced the Corporate Disclosure and Responsibility Act on Wednesday and said the goal is to help the state and public evaluate the effectiveness and need for corporate tax breaks, such as the deal offered last year to the CME Group Inc. and Sears Holdings Corp., aimed at keeping them in Illinois.

“Publicly traded corporations already tell shareholders how their investments resulted in losses and profits,” Cullerton said. “The people of Illinois deserve the same transparency.”

The measure goes to the Senate for a vote after passing the Senate Executive Committee by a vote of 9-5, with Republicans voting no.

Senate Minority leader Christine Radogno, R-Lemont, said it was “political gamesmanship” on the part of Cullerton and Senate Democrats, calling the measure “a cheap shot to the business community.”

Among the required disclosures in the bill are publicly traded companies’ income, including from subsidiaries, before and after tax credits, as well as their total taxable income, and other more technical information similar to what they file with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Companies would give the information — with a two-year delay — to the Illinois Secretary of State, who would make the files public.

The Illinois Chamber of Commerce said the bill would be burdensome and could threaten competitiveness.

“It flies very much in the face of a long tradition in Illinois, and we’d say across the nation, for confidentiality of tax returns,” said Todd Maisch, vice president of government affairs at the chamber, which advocates for state businesses.

George Egan, former director of portfolio management for College Illinois!, and others also were given combined bonuses of $176,003 after resigning or being fired.

At least three Florida counties are investigating cases of registered voters who do not have legal citizenship status, adding support to the sentiment that precipitated changes to state election laws in March of last year.

In the race to replace GOP U.S. Rep. Allen West, who is seeking election in the newly drawn 18th District, the establishments of both parties have set up former state Rep. Adam Hasner, R-Boca Raton, and former West Palm Beach Mayor Lois Frankel, the Democrat, as competitors for the November election.

COLUMBUS — The union-backed group that defeated collective bargaining reform in Ohio billed itself as a grassroots organization made of Ohioans, but the source of its funding tells a different story.

We Are Ohio raised more than $42 million to defeat Senate Bill 5 in November with more than $20 million coming from labor unions outside Ohio, according to conservative media watchdog group Media Trackers.