One Step Closer

The necessary signatures to recall Dan Kapanke have been collected, by a wide margin. When I got involved in this I knew we had a good chance of getting the necessary signatures within the 60 day window required by law. What I didn't expect, at the onset, was that we'd get over 20,000 signatures within 30 days.

The dedication and fervor displayed by the people in La Crosse and neighboring towns was awesome and inspiring. Naturally, Dan Kapanke had a hand in this and made it easy for us.

This latest fiasco in Wisconsin to bust unions under the guise of budget cuts was the tipping point for us because Kapanke was a weak candidate in the first place. He had a cloud of ethic violations dating back to 2001 that when brought forward sealed the deal in many of our eyes.

Honestly, he should be in jail, not serving the people of Wisconsin as a legislator. In 2009 he violated open meeting rcords laws and Wisconsin taxpayers were on the hook for $38,000 dollars for his legal bills.  (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 9/11/2009)

In 2010 he violated state ethic laws and used charitable funds controlled by his family to pay off personal business debts. Where I come from that's called theft. Kapanke even acknowledged that this was illegal, and yet still remained in office, and out of jail. (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 8/25/2010)

Who wants someone like this making budget decisions for taxpayers?

Back to the recall effort.

The volunteers who staffed the recall office and the volunteers who collected the signatures were single minded in the best course of action needed. While we supported the protests in Madison and the calls to boycott Koch industries, neither of these tactics gets the crooks out of office. Recall efforts were made the top priority. The best part of this was not one dime was paid for canvassing in this recall effort. This was all done by non-paid volunteers collecting the signatures.

Recall efforts have to be the top priority, not protests, nor boycotts. While acknowledging that Kapanke was one of the easiest targets for recall I want to challenge the people in the other districts to get out and get the remaining signatures required to ensure all eight republicans get recalled.

Protests and boycotts will not remove these parasites from office. Recall signatures must be collected as the first step. You can protest and boycott day after day and what good are those efforts if you don't have the signatures to recall them?

The passion of the protesters is admirable. But passion alone won't get results. It's time to prioritize the passion into logical and meaningful work. If the recall effort fails what good is protesting going to really do?