Wisconsin: Signatures handed in against Wisconsin Assembly Speaker

Petitioners are claiming that they handed in enough signatures to get the recall of Wisconsin Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R) on the ballot. They handed in over 11,000 signatures and needed about 7K. Note that Wisconsin has a peculiar law that allows any eligible voter to sign (history discussed here), so there is no requirement that the voter has to be registered (which should make it easier to make the ballot, but I'm not sure that holds true).

Vos, a long-time fixture of this blog, is facing the recall over his refusal to support Trump during the attempt to overthrow the 2020 election results and the decision to drop impeachment efforts against Wisconsin's Election Commission Chair Meagan Wolfe as she has refused to push for the discredited claims of election fraud.

Vos almost lost in 2022 after refusing to back the election fraud claims. Former Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman, who has previously targeted Vos, had called for his recall if he didn't support the impeachment of Wolfe. 

A recent court decision has held that the legislature does not have the power to impeach Wolfe.

You have selected Regicide:

Vos would be the sixth (or seventh!) state legislative leader to face a recall vote. The first was California Senate President Pro Tempore David Roberti in 1994. The second was Michigan House Speaker Andy Dillon in 2008. The fourth was Wisconsin Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald in 2012. All three of these officials won their races easily.

The third was Arizona Majority Leader Russell Pearce who was kicked out of office on November 2011 in a bitter recall battle over immigration and other issues. Perhaps worth noting is that Pearce lost to a Republican.

The fifth was Colorado President John Morse, who lost over his support for gun control legislation following the Aurora Movie Theater/Dark Knight mass shooting. Morse lost the race, but the Democrats have only gained in the years since. 

There was one other recall of a legislative leader, though the circumstances were so bizarre that it has to be separated out. Without going into too much details about the California recall wars of 1995, Republican Doris Allen backed the Democrats in a closely divided Assembly that had already seen two recall votes. Allen was elected Speaker of the Assembly and served for a little over 3 months, but she stepped down before her recall. She lost her recall race.