Tale of two recalls: WI Senators Hansen & Cowles

One of the consequences of Governor Walker's budget repair bill has been efforts to recall both Democratic and Republican state senators.  The Green Bay area happens to be represented by one of each, Republican Robert Cowles and Democrat Dave Hansen.  There is one crucial difference in these recall efforts, however, Cowles is being targeted for doing the job he was elected to do.  Hansen, on the other hand, is being targeted for leaving the state to avoid that very same job.

The Journal Sentinel recently offered a glimpse into which state senators are particularly vulnerable to a recall by taking a look at the vote for Obama in 2008 and Walker in 2010 in each senate district.  You can read the article here.  They remark that Cowles represents a district where Obama got more than 50% of the vote in 2008 and then end on this note, which they included in an update:

Update:  Related to the point above about personal popularity, some of the lawmakers on this list had very narrow victories last time, while others won unopposed or by large margins. It's important to factor that in as well. Republicans

In 2008 Hansen won re-election with 66% of the vote, a healthy margin to be sure, but the margin for Cowles was even bigger.  In 2008 there were just under 61,000 votes cast in the 2nd Senate District that Cowles represents, he got 99% of them.

So in Cowles, we have a state senator subjected to a recall drive who just two years ago was able to command 99% of the vote in his district.  Add to that the fact that he is the subject of a recall primarily because some Democratic leaning interest groups don't like the efforts of the Governor to curtail collective bargaining for public employees, and Cowles has publicly been supportive of the Governor's bill.

Hansen, by contrast, didn't command that much of the vote in the last election.  More importantly from my perspective is the fact that Hansen has fled the state with the express intent of shutting down  legislative activity in the state of Wisconsin, at least with respect to fiscal matters.

As I've said before, I'm dubious with respect to the value of recall efforts.  Elections have consequences, and we shouldn't seek to undo them without cause.  Perhaps some see the end of collective bargaining for public employees as such a cause  For my money, leaving the state just to avoid losing a vote in the legislature  seems like a much more compelling reason to undo election results.

1099 Reasons to Doubt the Senate

Today the US Senate voted on two amendments related to the health reform. One was a vote on repeal, which failed on a party-line vote. The other amendment was successful with 81 Senators voting to repeal the 1099 provision of the health reform law.

So an actual law, voted on by the majority in Congress and signed by the President, is able to garner 81 votes for repeal in the Senate after only 11 months? Not to mention the fact that the 1099 provision hasn't even gone into effect yet, so we have not even seen it in action.

I thought this was exactly the kind of thing the Senate was designed to protect against.

Here's a description of the 1099 provision from back in May (from CNN Money):

Section 9006 of the health care bill -- just a few lines buried in the 2,409-page document -- mandates that beginning in 2012 all companies will have to issue 1099 tax forms not just to contract workers but to any individual or corporation from which they buy more than $600 in goods or services in a tax year.

The stealth change radically alters the nature of 1099s and means businesses will have to issue millions of new tax documents each year...

While all but unnoticed at the time -- a Pennsylvania business group issued the first warning last October as the idea emerged in draft Senate legislation

And from coverage of today's debate:

By a bipartisan vote of 81-17, the Senate on Wednesday evening passed an amendment by Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) that would repeal a provision from the ACA that requires all businesses to fill out a tax form known as a "1099" each time they spend $600 or more....

...businesses complained that the provision was too onerous, congressional Republicans and Democrats didn't like it, and even President Obama called the provision a "flaw" during his State of the Union address last week and said that he was open to removing it from the law.

If you are just going to gulp your coffee, what is the point of a cooling saucer?

What Deliberative Body?

I'm beginning to wonder if election to the Senate automatically induces the inability to think clearly. You've got Ben Nelson (D-NE) who changes his mind like Imelda Marcos changed shoes and now you've got the latest boy wonder of the right, Scott Brown, who seems oblivious as to why he was elected.

These two items showed up in my reader. Both are from Senatus.

Senator-elect Scott Brown’s (R-MA) “stunning victory for the Massachusetts Senate seat once held by Ted Kennedy has many Republicans hoping he’ll make a White House bid,” ABC News reports.

When Barbara Walters, in her EXCLUSIVE This Week interview, asked Brown if he’d rule out a 2012 run, he said he found it humbling, but he wouldn’t say no.

Don't worry, he found another way to say he wasn't running:

Senator-elect Scott Brown (R-MA) “says he opposes federal funding for abortions, but thinks women should have the right to choose whether to have one,” the AP reports.

Brown tells ABC’s "This Week" that he disagrees with his party’s position that the Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion should be overturned.

Brown says the abortion question is one that’s best handled by a woman, her family and her doctor.

This position may be OK when you are literally THE marginal GOP Senator, but you have to really be delusional to think that this stance would work in a national race. I mean if Rudy Giuliani's record on other matters wasn't enough to overcome his pro-choice attitudes, does anyone really think Scott Brown has a chance?

Senate Democrats Vote to Extend TARP

Via Senatus

The Senate defeated an amendment offered by John Thune (R-SD) that was designed to end any further use of TARP funds for bailouts.

I thought that one of the consequences of the Brown victory in MA and the apparent end to health care reform would be an uptick in outrage over bailouts and efforts by the Democrats to demonstrate they were sufficiently on the side of "Main Street rather than Wall Street". We've seen something in this vein from the President, but apparently Congressional Democrats didn't get the memo. Perhaps they are waiting for a more opportune time to adopt the mantle of populist outrage, maybe some time a little closer to November.

The vote was 53 to 45. Thirteen Democrats joined the Republicans in supporting the amendment, including Wisconsin's Russ Feingold. Herb Kohl joined fifty Democrats and two independents and voted against the amendment.