Herb Kohl

As if Wis­con­sin were not already the focus of all eyes polit­i­cally because of its recent high-​​profile labor bat­tles and lawmaker-​​recall initiatives…now it will have an excit­ing Sen­ate race in 2012 as well. Sen­a­tor Herb Kohl (D-​​WI) who has served his state with steady, low-​​key com­pe­tence for almost a quar­ter of a cen­tury and still enjoys favor­able approval rat­ings, unex­pect­edly announced his retire­mentlast week:

I’ve always believed that it’s bet­ter to leave a job a lit­tle too early than a lit­tle too late. And that’s how I feel today. The inter­est and energy I have for this job will find a new home at the con­clu­sion of this term.

This only adds to the drama for Wis­con­sin, which is a swing state on not just the national level, but inter­nally as well, as Nate Sil­ver illus­trated in March:

Wis­con­sin is not one of those states—like Penn­syl­va­nia or Missouri—where the Democ­rats rack up huge mar­gins in the cities and the Repub­li­cans dom­i­nate every­where else. Yes, Democ­rats do very well in Madi­son and Mil­wau­kee. But those cities are not all that large—collectively, Mil­wau­kee County and Dane County, which includes Madi­son, account for only about one-​​quarter of the state’s voters—and most of the out­ly­ing areas are competitive.

Tammy Bald­win

The fron­trun­ners for the Demo­c­ra­tic nom­i­na­tion will most prob­a­bly be Russ Fein­gold, who lost the other Wis­con­sin Sen­ate seat to Repub­li­can Ron John­son in 2010; and seven-​​term State Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Tammy Bald­win. Bald­win, inci­den­tally, is a les­bian and if elected would be the first openly gay mem­ber of the United States Sen­ate. On the Repub­li­can side, the most widely dis­cussed pos­si­ble can­di­date is Con­gress­man Paul Ryan, who is cur­rently receiv­ing national atten­tion (much of it neg­a­tive) for his recent bud­get pro­posal which advo­cates elim­i­nat­ing Medicare while increas­ing tax cuts for wealthy Americans.

Kohl’s res­ig­na­tion has appar­ently caught Ryan off-​​guard, and he is presently weigh­ing this new oppor­tu­nity. Ryan’s offi­cial state­ment is as follows:

In over two decades of ser­vice in the Sen­ate, Herb Kohl has done much to help the great state of Wis­con­sin and the lives of its res­i­dents. While Sen­a­tor Kohl and I have had our pol­icy dis­agree­ments in the past, he has always had my respect. It has been a priv­i­lege to work with him over the years, and I wish him the best in his future endeav­ors. I was sur­prised by Sen­a­tor Kohl’s announce­ment and want to take some time over the next few days to dis­cuss this news with my fam­ily and sup­port­ers before mak­ing any deci­sion about how I’m best able to serve my employ­ers in the First Con­gres­sional Dis­trict, our state and nation.

Paul Ryan

Polit­i­cal ana­lysts are divided over what Ryan’s deci­sion might be. While an oppor­tu­nity for a Sen­ate seat doesn’t come along every day, this one would require Ryan to give up his pow­er­ful com­mit­tee chair­man­ship in the House and start over as a junior Sen­a­tor, which he could view as a demo­tion of sorts. Russ Fein­gold faces a sim­i­lar quandary, since he had been widely expected to run for Gov­er­nor of Wis­con­sin if next year’s recall effort against Gov­er­nor Scott Walker is successful.

In fact, the lively recall move­ment cur­rently under­way in Wis­con­sin is the over­ar­ch­ing ele­ment in all this polit­i­cal cal­cu­la­tion, and adds yet another layer of drama to what will already no doubt be a highly charged elec­toral cycle. In the wake of efforts by Gov­er­nor Scott Walker and his Repub­li­can leg­is­la­ture to limit union power and col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing rights, oppo­nents in Wis­con­sin have now filed enough sig­na­tures to hold recall votes on July 12 for six Repub­li­can state sen­a­tors. (Wis­con­sin law requires that Walker him­self must serve an entire year before recall efforts can be launched.) This is an unprece­dented accom­plish­ment, since only four state leg­is­la­tors have been recalled in the entire his­tory of Wis­con­sin. Repub­li­cans now hold a 19–14 major­ity in the state Sen­ate, so if Democ­rats gain three seats as a result of the recall votes, major­ity con­trol would swing in their favor.

Emo­tions are now run­ning par­tic­u­larly high because the Repub­li­can leg­is­la­ture is attempt­ing to fast-​​track a num­ber of ini­tia­tives in advance of the recall date, includ­ing sev­eral referred to by the Democ­rats as “vote sup­pres­sion mea­sures.” The Repub­li­cans, for their part, have col­lected enough sig­na­tures to recall three Demo­c­ra­tic Sen­a­tors, but their lists are all being chal­lenged in court as con­tain­ing many invalid sig­na­tures. There are also ongo­ing accu­sa­tions of Repub­li­cans get­ting out-​​of-​​state help in their recall efforts.

What­ever the ulti­mate result of the recall effort, there is no doubt it will con­tinue to cre­ate a highly charged polit­i­cal cli­mate in Wis­con­sin, adding to the emo­tion already whipped up by a newly ener­gized union move­ment and an organic, truly grass­roots “cit­i­zen upris­ing.” Per­haps this explains why a quiet, thought­ful man like Herb Kohl would choose this time to resign his seat.

In Kohl’s own words:

I think who­ever we nom­i­nate is going to have a very good chance of win­ning. To some extent the Repub­li­cans have over­reached, and peo­ple have recoiled, and the land­scape will be more favor­able. Not that I’m happy it’s happened—I’m not happy that it’s hap­pened. But I think the land­scape will be more favor­able to Demo­c­ra­tic can­di­dates than last year.

Maybe…just maybe…Herb Kohl is leav­ing now because he’s decided this is the best chance that’s likely to come along for the seat he is giv­ing up to remain in the hands of his own party.

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