'Recall Walker' Petitioners Net More than 100,000 Signatures in Four Days

Local 4630's Mark Frey is one of many CWA members gathering petition signatures to recall anti-union Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker.

Below: An estimated 40,000 people turned out Saturday to march and rally at the state capitol in support of the Recall Walker campaign.
Photo by Martin Saunders/www.FotoMadison.com

More than 100,000 Wisconsin voters signed petitions to recall Gov. Scott Walker in just the first four days of the campaign to oust him, and volunteers are continuing to collect thousands more signatures daily.

On the opening day of deer-hunting season, CWA Local 4630 member Mark Frey stood along a rural road with a nurse, a teacher and other volunteers armed with clipboards and "Recall Walker" signs.

Frey, an active member of CWA's Legislative-Political Action Team, said so many drivers stopped that at one point the line to sign was six-deep. "One gentleman told me, 'You know I've always voted Republican because that's what my parents did. I just can't do it anymore.' Other petition signers said that what Walker is doing is immoral," he said.

The rural voices are especially important, Frey said, because Walker has repeatedly claimed that it's only "urban" voters who are angry about his anti-collective bargaining law, vast program cuts and tax schemes that are helping the rich and hurting everyone else.

"This myth that Madison is somehow detached from the rest of the Wisconsin, I think that's been proven not remotely true," Frey said.

More CWA activists circulated petitions Saturday as an estimated 40,000 people from around the state marched and rallied in Madison. The petition drive began Nov. 15, with the goal of collecting 800,000 signatures by the Jan. 17, 2012, deadline. The campaign needs 540,208 valid signatures to get Walker's recall on a ballot next spring.