The head of the state Government Accountability Board says his agency may ask for more time and money to deal with the flood of recall petitions that are likely to flow into his office.
Recall committees have been formed against eight Republican and eight Democratic state senators. There are actually 20 committees in all--a few senators have more than one committee registered against them.
Government Accountability Board Director Kevin Kennedy says it will take his office time to review all signatures. He says "if we receive 20 sets of recall petitions because we have 20 different committees registered, that's over 415,000 signatures we would have to review."
The former Elections Board handled recalls against state Senators George Petak of Racine in 1996 and Gary George of Milwaukee in 2003. Kennedy says in both cases the Board asked a court for more time to review signatures and he expects the Government Accountability Board could do the same. Kennedy also expects to ask the legislature for more money. He says "my sense is we would have to do that, we've already crafted a request to the Joint Committee on Finance asking for funding so we can bring in some temporary staff to assist us."
Recall committees have 60 days to circulate petitions, which currently would be due on staggered dates between April 25th and May 4th. Elections could happen six weeks later depending on whether there are primary challengers. Kennedy says the Board could also ask a court to move all races to the same date. He says "it's in the public interest to not string these things out. You know, a recall election every other week throughout the summer. It's also certainly much easier for our staff to have one filing deadline."
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The Wisconsin Constitution requires someone to have been in office a full year before they're subject to a recall. That's why 16 senators elected in 2008 are eligible. The other 17 are not.
