In what could serve as a test as to the staying power of the far-right movement in Wisconsin, a pro-Trump group seeking to recall Assembly Speaker Robin Vos formally filed paperwork with the state.
The move starts the clock on the 60-day window needed to obtain the required number of signatures to move forward with the recall effort. In this case, that number is around 6,900 signatures, of 25% of the vote in Vos’ Racine-area Assembly district in the 2022 gubernatorial election.
In a statement, Vos said he was focused on the remainder of the legislative session and that he is “confident that my friends, neighbors and supporters from Racine County will stand with me and ensure this effort fails to gain any real traction.”
“The effort today is no surprise since the people involved cannot seem to get over any election in which their preferred candidate doesn’t win,” Vos said. “This recall is a waste of time, resources and effort. I’m proud of my record and the accomplishments that we’ve achieved this year.”
The Rochester Republican has increasingly been targeted by some members of his own party, first for ordering an end to Michael Gableman’s review of the 2020 election in Wisconsin and then for a refusal to move forward with articles of impeachment against Wisconsin Elections Commission Administrator Meagan Wolfe.
Vos narrowly prevailed in 2022 against a primary challenger, Adam Steen, who pulled in 48% of the vote, or a little over 4,200 votes. Steen, backed by Donald Trump, advocated for the decertification of the 2020 election and also mounted a write-in campaign in the general election.
Vos has clashed with Trump over the former president's push to overturn his 2020 loss to President Joe Biden in the state, a move that would be illegal.
Steen and Harry Wait, a Racine County man charged last year with illegally requesting absentee ballots on behalf of two other voters, then led a group that ran ads in November threatening Vos with a recall if he did not move forward with impeaching Wolfe.
The ads reiterated a series of conservative critiques of Wolfe, which ramped up in the wake of the 2020 election and Trump’s baseless claims of voter fraud in the state.
Charles Franklin, director of the Marquette University Law School poll, noted that Vos faced a symbolic vote urging his removal as speaker at the state GOP convention in 2022 but that his standing seemed to improve when Republicans met last year.
"Does the MAGA (pro-Trump) criticism of established Republican figures like Vos still carry the potency that it sounded like it did at one point?" Franklin said.
The recall papers were filed with the Elections Commission by Burlington resident Matthew Snorek, although Wait has also been involved in the effort. Separate documents filed with the Wisconsin Ethics Commission also named Smorek and listed a phone number belonging to Jay Schroeder, who described himself as a “concerned citizen” and part of the group.
“Wisconsin must move ‘Forward’ without Vos in power,” the recall petition filed with the Elections Commission said. It criticized Vos for “blocking fair elections in WI” and not moving forward with Wolfe’s impeachment, among other items.
Schroeder, who previously ran for secretary of state in 2022, said he believes the group will be able to get the signatures needed to move forward with a recall election. It would be the first such election since since 2012, when then-Gov. Scott Walker beat back a recall effort.
The effort could also serve as a sideshow as the state Assembly wraps up its work before its members return to their districts to begin running for re-election.
“Until somebody says, ‘We have put $2+ million into the recall fund, we have gathered five times more signatures than we have to’ — then yeah, sure, it is going to be a legitimate recall effort,” said Brandon Scholz, a former GOP operative. “I guess until it hits that step, it's a press release. Even if they can get into the recall effort, it is likely designed to be an effort to distract and annoy.”
But the recall push could be stymied by a ruling from the Wisconsin Supreme Court that struck down the state's legislative maps and "enjoined the Wisconsin Elections Commission from using the current legislative maps in all future elections.”
That could include any recall election.
In a letter to Vos Wednesday, Elections Commission chief legal counsel Jim Witecha said the commission was conferring with the Wisconsin Department of Justice on the potential ramifications the case might have on the recall, including whether it might be foreclosed while the map standoff is going on.
"This legal examination is ongoing, and the Commission has NOT yet formulated its opinion on recall and circulation viability in light of (the ruling)," Witecha wrote.
Democrats have not said whether they will aid in the recall effort. Joe Oslund, a spokesperson for the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, said Vos "did his best to placate the organizers of this recall attempt" by associating with Gableman and Trump and failed.
"It's clear Robin Vos' grip on power is slipping in the most humiliating way possible, and he has nobody to blame but himself," Oslund said in a statement.
Now that the petition is filed, Vos will be allowed to raise an unlimited amount of money, something which made Walker’s 2012 recall one of the the most expensive races in Wisconsin history at the time. It is the first high-profile recall effort since a group unsuccessfully attempted to recall Gov. Tony Evers in 2020.
