Democrat John Lehman of Racine is in an unusual position. He beat Republican Sen. Van Wanggaard in the June 5 recall by 834 votes (out of more than 72,000 cast) but his entrance into the state Senate is on hold, pending a Wanggaard-requested recount, which began today. <br /><br />The deadline for the recount is July 2. But that doesn\'t necessarily mean that Lehman (or Wanggaard, if he is able to defy all odds and come up with enough votes to swing the election his way) will enter the Senate shortly thereafter. <br /><br />After Racine County posts its recount totals, both candidates have five days to challenge them. If one of them does challenge the results, his campaign can file a case in the circuit court, where a judge will hear the case. And if the candidate doesn\'t like that result? He\'s got 30 days to file an appeal in appellate court. <br /><br />That means that Lehman\'s apparent victory could be delayed for a while. <br /><br />It seems insane to think Wanggaard would use tie up the recount in the courts to deny the Democrats their hard-won majority in the state Senate, but we\'ve seen a year and a half of the Republicans\' poor sportsmanship, frivolous lawsuits and lack of respect for the electoral process. This is within the realm of possibility, unfortunately.<br /><br />I have more to say about this in <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"/article-19040-state-senate-in-limbo-with-recount.html\">this week\'s Shepherd</a>.<br /><br />Here, though, is a Q&A with John Lehman, who lost to tea party favorite Wanggaard in 2010 but beat him two weeks ago:<br /><br /><strong>Shepherd: </strong>What do you make of the recount?<br /><br /><strong>Lehman:</strong> I think that the margin of victory is such that we will prevail in a recount. With the use of voting machines and the care that we think the clerks have taken, we just don\'t think that the votes are going to be there for him. <br /><br />There have been allegations of irregularities but nothing specific that I could catch that would really affect vote totals. Mr. Wanggaard, from early on, felt that there shouldn\'t be a recall, that there wouldn\'t be enough signatures for a recall, that the signatures were fraudulent. He\'s just been in denial the whole route and it\'s not surprising that he\'s stretching this out. But we think that margin is something that\'s going to prevail. <br /><br />He was quoted last week in a press release that there was precedent in Racine for a recount that prevailed, where there was an 800-vote difference. I tried to find it. I don\'t think it exists. He talked about when Judge Barry was first elected district attorney in Racine. We went back and looked at the newspaper files. It was a 133-vote difference, with a lot of hand-counted ballots. That was in 1978. There were irregularities in Sturdevant, where the number of votes didn\'t jibe with the number of registered folks. But we had the canvass. Like I said, I think we\'re going to prevail. We picked up some votes in the canvass.<br /><br />By the way, there was an election [in 2002] in Racine and Democratic Sen. Kim Plache lost by 733 votes to Cathy Stepp. She conceded on election night, and graciously said, “You won.” That\'s almost an identical situation. We were a little under 800 votes on election night. <br /><br /><strong>Shepherd:</strong> This delays your re-entry into the state Senate. Does it have any consequences, since the official session finished this spring?<br /><br /><strong>Lehman: </strong>First, it keeps the number of Republican staffers employedand Sen. Wanggaard. Two, there have been some questions about expenditures that the Republicans made when they were in the majority. The Democrats would have access to information about that performance if they were in the majority. Then, a Democratic majority in the Senate would prevent any summer or fall shenanigans. It would be entirely Republican-controlled [until Lehman takes office]. Wanggaard said in a press release that there are no Republican plans for session days before January. He\'s saying that wouldn\'t happen. But it could happen and he doesn\'t have control over that. The governor and leadership have control over that. <br /><br /><strong>Shepherd: </strong>What happens to the 21st District in the fall?<br /><br /><strong>Lehman: </strong>The next election for this seat isn\'t until 2014. That\'s quite a ways off. The district has been redrawn for Sen. Wanggaard. It goes around his housethe line is half a block away from his houseand then to western Racine County and down [toward] the state line. It\'s a radical redrawing for partisan purposes. I don\'t know what the percentage of Republicans is, but it\'s very high. <br /><br />The 21st District that I just beat Wanggaard in was wonderfully competitive. It had gone back and forth for years if you go back to [Democrat] Joe Strohl and [Republican George] Petak and [Democrat] Plache and [Republican] Stepp and myself, then Wanggaard. It was one of those very competitive 50/50 districts that either side could win. The citizens really have a much stronger vote in a case like that. Even the 22nd Districtwhich will be Sen. Wirch\'s district, downtown Kenosha and downtown Racineas long as they don\'t have a Democratic primary, there\'s no election for that seat. That person\'s just going to walk in. I\'m saying on both sides, when you take a very competitive 21st District and a mildly competitive 22nd District, and then you draw them into safe seats for each party, the citizens don\'t benefit.<br /><br /><strong>Shepherd: </strong>The 21st District truly was a swing district.<br /><br /><strong>Lehman: </strong>Right. Just about every time it was up, everybody had to pour a lot of resources in. What the citizens don\'t realize is that you have those few competitive races in the Senatemaybe three or five. In the Assembly you have eight, ten, 12and the rest of them lean toward safe seats. You don\'t have as much money pouring in. You don\'t have as much advertising, you don\'t have as active a candidate. It just makes for better democracy, in my view. It doesn\'t make it nicer for candidates, by the way. It\'s a very difficult seat for a Democrat or Republican to hold onto. <br /><br />And there seems to be an anti-incumbent bias, if you look at it over the past 20 years in Racine. Although Plache got re-elected. She won the recall and then she was re-elected. So you can do it. If I prevail in the recount, I will have been elected and re-elected, in a weird way [laughs].<br /><br /><strong>Shepherd: </strong>If you prevail in the recount, you will be the only Democrat to win in this round of the recalls. Why do you think that is so?<br /><br /><strong>Lehman:</strong> Gov. Walker won the 21st Senate District in the same race that I beat Wanggaard. Walker won. So it wasn\'t a runaway and all of a sudden it\'s Democratic down here. We prevailed over Wanggaard because Wanggaard had some weaknesses and I think we had some strengths. <br /><br />He was involved in some real shenanigans on the Police and Fire Commission in Racine to open up the police chief search when there were only minority candidates left and then he changed his mind under pressure. He also did not get the endorsement of the Racine Police Assn., his union. He was seen I think by a number of people as a traitor. “What are you doing, not supporting the people you\'ve worked with your whole life?”<br /><br />And we just had a wonderful coalition of progressive-side folks, faith-based folks, minority folks, union folks. Democratic Party folks. We ran what was a beautiful campaign. I\'m not saying that to brag. At different points I looked around me and was just in awe. There were so many moving parts in the campaign. There was a tremendously strong effort here. And we started out in a different place than [Democratic recall candidates] Donna Seidel or Lori Compas or Kristen Dexter. We started out in that 50/50 district with a former state senator. So there may have been some value to me coming out of retirement running. <br /><br />The recall in Racine was the strongest of the four efforts. If you remember the number of signatures collected, it was a wonderful group of peoplea couple of them paid but most of them volunteersthat just kind of transitioned from the recall. They were doing voter registration when I announced. And then boomthere were all of these people coming in to help. You can call it anger or voter response. A lot of retirees. Young retirees60-ish people. A lot of women. A lot of school teachers. <br /><br />Obviously it wasn\'t easy. Walker won the district but we went against the tide. It was a beautiful thing. I was humbled by it. <br /><br /><strong>Shepherd: </strong>What are your observations on what went down in the Capitol last year?<br /><br /><strong>Lehman: </strong>The first thing was absolute shock. It was unprecedented, an aberration in Wisconsin\'s history. The items that the Republicans hammered on in 2011, I had seen every session. I was in the Legislature for six years with Scott Walker. I watched Walker and [Mike] Huebsch and [Robin] Vos up close. I know that their agenda is. What they did in 2011 is their long-term agenda: guns and tax breaks and go after the unions. They\'ve been trying to do that forever. But to do it so boldly and brashly when it was unnecessary. <br /><br />And then Wanggaard, from this 50/50 district, jumped on right away. He was making public pronouncements supporting the governor way early. I don\'t think that he listened to the district. For 16 months he had no listening sessions. He wouldn\'t come out in public. During the campaign in 2010 he would never debate. We tried to get him to debate. He turned down the Racine Taxpayers Association. He was very strongly managed by the Republicans. They did that with [Pam] Galloway up in Wausau, too. He was very managed, very protected. <br /><br />
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