05/21/06 State Gets Another Crack At Iraq War

Exactly a year after the Wisconsin Green Party announced it would sponsor a campaign that ultimately resulted in 24 successful anti-war advisory referendums across the state, the effort continues.

Voters in at least two communities -- and as many as 20 -- may join those in Ozaukee County and the city of Milwaukee this November in giving their opinions on U.S. military activities, according to organizers of this spring's referendum campaign.

But so far, there has been no groundswell of efforts to put the war question on ballots across the nation, as opponents warned and supporters hoped.

The Racine Coalition for Peace & Justice started its petition drive May 5 at a popular community pancake breakfast, gathering more than 800 of the 3,105 signatures necessary to get their question on that city's November ballot. In Fond du Lac, organizers are hoping to get their petition drive started soon.

In April, 32 municipalities -- from small towns to such cities as Madison and La Crosse -- in the state had referendums asking if troops should be removed from Iraq, and the measures passed in 24. Wisconsin law allows such questions to be placed on the ballot either through a local board resolution or from a petition drive that nets 15 percent of the vote in the previous gubernatorial election.

Following the April results, the Madison-based Wisconsin Network for Peace and Justice received inquiries from groups in another 20 municipalities interested in mobilizing similar referendums for the Nov. 7 election, said Steve Burns, the group's "Bring the Troops Home coordinator."

"We're seeing and hearing from a lot of people who were definitely inspired by the April results," said Burns last week.

Because the law allows 60 days for collecting signatures, the WNPJ advises groups to begin their efforts, at the latest, by June 3, to be assured of getting on the November ballot.

While the referendum issue has been out of the media spotlight since the April elections, Burns expects more communities to join Racine and Fond du Lac in petition efforts. There has been interest mostly from southern Wisconsin and in the Milwaukee suburbs.

What has happened, he said, is that "opposition to the war is not really news any more, it's become the majority sentiment."

2 Illinois towns

The referendum movement, though, doesn't seem to have spread far beyond Wisconsin's borders yet, but "it is still early," said Ruth Weill, Milwaukee-based co-chairman of the Wisconsin Green party.

At least two towns in Illinois have set anti-war referendums for November, and a few Iowa municipalities are considering it, Weill said. Election laws make it difficult in many states -- such as Minnesota -- to do go the referendum route.

In Racine, the petition drive is the local group's second effort to get the issue on the ballot, having failed early this year to convince the City Council to pass a resolution.

"We thought that most of the City Council members would have liked to see it appear on the ballot," said retired teacher Dick Kinch, of the Racine Coalition for Peace and Justice.

"But they didn't think it was appropriate for a municipality to tell the country how to run its business. So we decided to do it the hard way," he said.

Ken Yorgan, a Racine chiropractor and coalition leader, said an anti-war referendum in the city "might be a fairly close race, it's hard to say.

"I suppose that the fact that in 75 percent of the other municipalities where this ran in April, it passed, that might give people here more courage to vote for it. It's still a touchy issue," said Yorgan.

In Fond du Lac, supporter Madonna Bowman said the petition drive hasn't started yet.

"We are distributing packets, trying to get enough circulators to collect the number of signatures we need," she said, adding the organizers come from a group of people who gathered last fall.

The wording

Burns said some of the lessons of the April campaign may help organizers gearing up for November.

"We learned not to read too much into the political background of the places," he said. Areas with a history of voting for one political party, for example, could not be expected to vote that way on the war issue.

Also, said Burns, referring to the referendum wording that used the word "now" or "immediately" in reference to the timing of the troop withdrawal, "we learned that strong wording was not a disadvantage. If it doesn't say something strong, what's the point?"

Another observation was that most people have their minds made up about the war.

"People know where they stand. They know why they oppose the war and they are not shy about telling other people about it," he said. In Madison, he said, organizers established a "literature committee" to provide background information to voters who wanted it, but it was disbanded. "There was no demand for it."

Burns said the results in April were clear evidence the public is deeply dissatisfied with U.S. policy in Iraq and its cost in human lives and money.

Referendum opponents, including Rick Wiley, executive director of the Republican Party of Wisconsin, were joined by Jessica McBride, a conservative Milwaukee media critic, in writing that the results meant little.

In a letter to The Capital Times following the election, Wiley wrote: "Thirty-two out of Wisconsin's 1,902 municipalities have now voted on whether or not we will help to create that free Middle East, or whether we will withdraw and try to build a wall separating ourselves from the world. Twenty-plus municipalities believe we should give up. That is their prerogative in a free nation. But don't try to sell us on that being the will of the people of Wisconsin, much less our nation."

McBride, dissecting the results shortly after the election, wrote that "you can make the numbers read pretty much how you want." The referendums "are a testament to the PR skills of a couple mobilized, organized grass roots lefty peace groups. They also speak to the Main Stream Media template on the war, because the PR efforts of said Lefty peace groups fit neatly into the media template."

Burns responded that the referendums were examples of democracy in action, "a fundamental, voting rights issue." The WNPJ's analysis also noted the total vote carried the anti-war sentiment, 39,163 to 25,429, or 61 percent to 39 percent, with some of the victories coming in communities that voted for Bush in 2004.

A wild card

There is a wild-card factor in November, also, that may influence war referendums: Voters statewide will decide whether to approve a constitutional amendment that would bar the state from recognizing same-sex marriages. They also will vote in an advisory referendum on whether the state can impose the death penalty in certain murder convictions.

While the Wisconsin Green Party was the most vocal promoter of the April anti-war efforts, for the November election, that party has its own slate of candidates to promote. Weill said they aren't about to abandon the issue, however.

"We worked very hard with other coalition groups to get it on the ballot (in Milwaukee)," she said. "To me, the referendum goes hand-in-hand with the Green message."

So far, opposition to the anti-war referendum in Milwaukee has not been organized, said Weill and others close to the state effort. She attributed the lack of opposition in Milwaukee to the city "really feeling the effects of all the money being spent on this war ... because we have such social problems here."