Group pulls plug on Jauch recall effort

MADISON — The Recall Bob Jauch Committee suspended operations a week short of the petition signature deadline and won’t be submitting signatures to the Wisconsin Government Accountability Board, according to a committee spokesman.

“We’re very close to getting the signatures and we’d hoped to get it done by this point, but we’ve decided to refocus our efforts to elect Gov. (Scott) Walker,” Orville Seymer, field operations director of Citizens for Responsible Government, said Friday.

Shirl LaBarre, of Hayward, who headed the committee to recall State Sen. Robert Jauch, D-Poplar, wasn’t available for comment.

“She’s feeling good about what we’ve done. The bottom line is we’ll get (Jauch) in the end. Hopefully, this will pressure Jauch to realize he made a mistake when he (didn’t support mining legislation),” Seymer said.

“The pretend recall effort against me funded by a Milwaukee fringe group failed because they and the few extremists who support them are out of touch with the citizens of northern Wisconsin,” Jauch wrote in a prepared statement. “The intimidating tactics of this runaway group to try to influence my effort to seek responsible legislation didn’t work and has been soundly rejected by the public.”

Seymer, whose CRG Network was the main funding source of the Jauch recall effort, wouldn’t disclose the number of signatures that had been gathered in 60-day signature period that began March 19. He disputed the committee was just refusing to admit that it wouldn’t meet the 15,270 signature goal and was using the Walker recall election as an excuse to end the effort now.

“It would have been very close (to the 15,270 signatures required) but we didn’t feel real confident we’d have a good enough cushion,” Seymer said.

A 10 to 20 percent cushion, or a maximum of 18,324 signatures, would have been adequate to survive the verification process the GAB would have conducted after Friday’s deadline, said Seymer.

Asked if he was satisfied with the $3,500 the recall committee raised or contributed to the campaign after the first 30 days, Seymer said any candidate other than Walker is having a difficult time finding contributors.

“Walker is sucking it all up now, ask any one running,” he said.

The Jauch recall effort will resume sometime after the June 5 Walker recall election and by then more money should be available to try and unseat Jauch, Seymer said.

Although many Walker supporters have complained about the state seemingly being in perpetual recall efforts, Seymer didn’t see it as a contradiction to restart a Jauch recall.

“The northern Wisconsin volunteers, who have been making the effort, and are the hard core volunteers who will be out beating the drum,” when the effort resumes, Seymer said.

The Jauch recall signatures gathered to date are invalid as of next Friday, said Reid Magney, a GAB spokesman, as all signatures must be within the 60-day time limit. The state places no time or frequency restrictions on recall efforts against elected officials after their first year in office, he said.

The recall committee would revert to a Political Action Committee after Friday but would be required to file a financial report by May 23, Magney said.

“No matter how they try to spin their decision they couldn’t get sufficient signatures to have a recall election,” Jauch said. “The citizens of the north will not be conned by deceptive and poisonous rhetoric that is spewed by individuals who seek domination over public officials and anyone else who happen to disagree with them.”

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