Did the 2 Wisconsin Democrats Maintain Their Seats?

When the 6 Wisconsin Republicans faced their recall vote last week, there was a great deal of news coverage about it.

This Tuesday, 2 Democrats faced a recall vote also. How did they do?

Unfortunately for Wisconsin, and perhaps for the country, both of these politicians - who had fled the state rather than vote on Governor Walker's union proposal, maintained their seats.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/08/17/us-wisconsin-recalls-idUSTRE77F2W820110817

(Reuters) - Two Wisconsin Democratic state senators beat back Republican challengers on Tuesday in recall elections triggered by a fight over collective bargaining rights for public sector workers.

Despite the recall wins, Governor Scott Walker and his Republican allies will retain control of the state legislature, where the battle over public workers' union powers was waged earlier this year with mass protests, legislative maneuvering and court challenges.

The Democrats who defended their seats on Tuesday, Robert Wirch and Jim Holperin, were among 14 Wisconsin state senators who left the state in an attempt to prevent passage of an anti-union measure earlier this year.

Holperin beat political novice Kim Simac by 54 percent to 46 percent, with 78 percent of precincts reporting, according to WisPolitics.com. Wirch beat Republican lawyer Jonathan Steitz by 58 percent to 42 percent, with 100 percent of precincts reporting.

After nine recall elections in the last month, Republicans have managed to keep control of the state senate -- 17 to 16 -- because Democrats failed to unseat three senators in six Republican recalls last week.

In total, the Democrats won 5 of 9 recall contests -- with all three Democratic incumbents keeping their seats and two of the six challenged Republicans losing theirs. Democratic Party of Wisconsin Chair Mike Tate said the results had shifted the balance of power away from conservatives.

"The state Senate as now constituted would NOT have approved Walker's extreme, divisive assault on the middle class and working people," Tate said in a statement.

WELL FOUGHT CHALLENGES
Brad Courtney, chair of the state's Republican Party, congratulated Simac and Steitz for mounting "well-fought challenges."

"Wisconsin now emerges from this recall election season with a united Republican majority who has beaten off an attack from national unions and special interests and emerged steadfastly committed to carrying forward a bold job creation agenda," Courtney said in a statement.

Holperin told supporters in Rhinelander that he hoped the recall results would signal a new era in Wisconsin politics.

"I do hope (these recalls) signal a new era of what I hope is a more moderate approach to public policy in the state, starting with the governor," he added.

Governor Walker fought for the union curbs, which restrict the bargaining rights of public workers and also make them pay more for health care and pensions, saying they were needed to help Wisconsin close a $3.6 billion budget deficit.

Democrats cried foul, saying public workers had already agreed to steep benefit cuts. They called the effort union-busting, designed to hobble organized labor -- a major source of Democratic Party financing -- ahead of the 2012 elections.

The fight thrust Wisconsin into the national spotlight, igniting massive pro-union protests and political fights that led to the recall efforts against six Republicans who backed the union curbs and three Democrats who opposed them.

The nine recall efforts were historic. Until this summer, there had been only 20 state-level recall elections in U.S. history. The money poured into the recall campaigns has also been something for the record books.

Mike Buelow, research director for the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, estimates that candidates and outside groups spent as much as $37 million on the recalls.

That amount is "really astronomical for Wisconsin," he said. It is more than double the amount spent on state legislative races last year when 116 seats, not nine, were up for grabs.

With the recalls acting as somewhat of a rehearsal for 2012, experts say the spending could be a harbinger of record outlays next year.
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