05/01/06 More Referendums Will Show Desire To Bring The Troops Home From Iraq

Dear Editor: Obviously Republican Party executive director Rick Wiley is unhappy with the results of the April 4 election, in which 24 Wisconsin communities (including six communities that voted for George W. Bush in the 2004 election) voted "yes" to ballot initiatives calling on our government to bring our troops home from Iraq. That's understandable. If I were Mr. Wiley, having seen my "stay the course" views on the war rejected by a margin of 61 percent to 39 percent, I'd be unhappy too.

He dismisses these municipalities as "a few of Wisconsin's most far-left towns." Oh really? How does Mr. Wiley explain the vote in Draper, a town in rural Sawyer County, which voted 58 percent for Bush in 2004 and has now voted 65 percent for "immediate withdrawal" from Iraq?

Mr. Wiley's main objection was that there weren't enough towns voting to make the results significant. Here's a simple remedy to that problem: Why doesn't Mr. Wiley talk to his friends in the Republican-controlled state Legislature and ask them to place a statewide "Bring Our Troops Home" referendum on the November ballot? If he's really so confident that most people in our state support his views on the war, he should be eager to have a statewide vote.

I won't hold my breath waiting for that to happen, and the people of our state aren't waiting either. The Wisconsin Network for Peace and Justice has already been contacted by citizens in more than a dozen Wisconsin communities with inquiries about how to place a "Troops Home" initiative on their local ballot for November.

And our Wisconsin form of grass-roots democracy is now spreading to Illinois, where citizens in four towns, two of them in U.S House Speaker Dennis Hastert's district, voted recently to place "Troops Home" initiatives on their local ballots in November.

With seven months to go until the November elections, both sides of this debate are busy. We're busy working to help Wisconsin citizens win the right to vote on the war, and Mr. Wiley should get busy honing his post-election "spin" -- he'll need it in November.