Wednesday Open Thread

Welcome to your Wednesday open thread. The week really seems to be dragging. That’s because next week I’ll be in Boston. It’s for work but I’ve never been to Boston and I’m looking forward to the visit.

There are still several days left to file recall petitions in Wisconsin. Word came today that a 6th Wisconsin Republican will be recalled.

As of right now, eight petitions have been filed for recall elections in Wisconsin against state Senators: five against Republicans, three against Democrats. Via Dane 101, we learn that the sixth Republican recall will be filed this week, a week before the deadline against Sen. Robert Cowles.

A recall petition against Cowles will be submitted to the Government Accountability Board this Thursday, putting the number of Republican senators facing recall elections at six after signatures were delivered against Alberta Darling on April 21. Three Democratic senators – Dave Hansen, Robert Wirch, and Jim Holperin – have also had recall petitions filed against them.

That puts the total number of Wisconsin senators now facing recall elections at nine. There have only been four recall elections in the history of the state up to this point.

Cowles will be a tougher Republican to defeat than some of the other Senators on the ballot, but it’s not impossible. The Daily Kos poll shows Cowles’ approval rating at a mere 32%, and the race against a generic Dem challenger at only 45-43 in Cowles’ favor. And that poll was taken before Cowles voted for Scott Walker’s anti-union bill. So this is definitely a seat in play.

This will probably be the last recall petition filed by Democrats in Wisconsin. Glenn Grothman and Mary Lazich, the other two for whom signatures have been gathered, come from very Republican districts. However, there are still several days until the May 2 deadline, so anything is possible.

All of you who are having election withdrawal will have something to watch this summer. It should be interesting. Change in partisan contol of the Wisconsin Senate is certainly in play.

I don’t how many of you followed the mini soap opera about the law firm that was hired to defend DOMA but then withdrew. Amanda Terkel at Huffington Post has some inside details.

A source at the firm described the “mayhem” that ensued after employees learned King & Spalding agreed to defend DOMA.

“Management was divided, people were threatening to quit,” the source said. In addition, it was unclear if members of the firm’s Diversity Committee had been consulted ahead of time about taking on the case.

…

LGBT rights organizations also exerted a significant amount of pressure on sensitive areas for the firm: its clients and recruits.

The Human Rights Campaign, for example, reached out to King & Spalding’s clients and groups to which the firm had made charitable donations. It also targeted law schools and students who would be potential recruits for King & Spalding to make them aware of the DOMA case.

“[We wanted to] expose the hypocrisy of King & Spalding taking on this engagement while at the same time they were espousing to prospective clients and recruits that they were leaders in LGBT equality,” said HRC spokesman Fred Sainz. “So we thought it was important to draw attention to that hypocrisy because you can’t claim that you’re good for LGBT people and at the same time, effectively be declaring war on gay and lesbian families.”

I love this story because it shows the power of people to effect social change. King & Spaulding was facing a sh*tstorm and obviously decided the mini-sh*tstorm was better than the big one coming their way.