Wisconsin CCW Override Vote Down to Wire
by Dave Workman
Senior Editor
As the effort to override anti-gun Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle’s veto of concealed carry legislation went down to the wire in the Badger State, another anti-concealed carry Democrat, Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts, was emerging as his party’s front-runner to take the presidential nomination following the New Hampshire primary.
As Gun Week went to press, lobbying was intense in Wisconsin to press holdout Democrat Rep. Gary Sherman from Port Wing to vote for an override. Sherman, a co-sponsor of the concealed carry (CCW) legislation in Wisconsin, had written an impassioned, yet detailed commentary on his support for armed citizens in The Ashland Daily Press last Nov. 6. In that article, Sherman wrote, “In my very first assembly campaign in 1998, I made my support for concealed carry very clear and I have not changed my view.”
The Assembly vote was put off a week, then until Jan. 29, a day after this issue went to press, after the Wisconsin Senate successfully voted to override Doyle’s veto on Jan. 20. Anti-gun Democrats and Doyle were pulling out all the stops, as were several anti-self-defense police officials, who were involved in the last-minute tug-of-war for critical votes.
The Senate override included votes from five Democrats who stood in opposition to their party’s governor. State Sens. Roger Breske, Russ Decker, Julie Lassa, Jeff Plale and Bob Wirch literally stuck to their guns, while a sixth Democrat, Sen. Mark Meyer of LaCrosse, backed away from his initial vote supporting licensed concealed carry, only to side with Doyle. The final Senate vote was 23-8, but no such wide margin existed in the Assembly.
Right up to the last minute, national organizations, including the National Rifle Association (NRA) and Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms (CCRKBA), were pressing grassroots efforts, urging gunowners to call the state legislative hotline, or speak to their Assembly representatives directly.
Ironically, all this was taking place as Democrats—anxious to demonstrate to American voters that they support gun rights—were not only leading the opposition to concealed carry in Wisconsin, but were propelling Sen. Kerry, a one-time lieutenant governor to Michael Dukakis of Massachusetts, as the likely challenger this fall to President George W. Bush. Kerry, who staged a photo-op of himself with a borrowed shotgun in hand on a canned pheasant hunt two months ago, is opposed to concealed carry.
A Kerry aide in Washington, DC, told a Wisconsin newspaper that Kerry “would not support any kind of federal concealed carry legislation and would oppose a federal law that would impose a right-to-carry standard on any individual state.”
Kerry won the Iowa caucus and the New Hampshire primary, and was expected to do well in the Feb. 7 multi-state primary elections. (See related commentary in Hindsight, Page 19.)
Wisconsin newspapers editorialized against the concealed carry bill, complaining about “hidden guns” not only on the editorial pages, but also using the term in news columns. But that didn’t stop CCRKBA Executive Director Joe Waldron from noting, “Wisconsin citizens deserve the same kind of protection. These laws have been proven to work everywhere else, and law-abiding Wisconsin residents will prove that such a law can work in their state, also.”
NRA lobbyist Darren LaSorte had been in Wisconsin for weeks to press the right-to-carry legislation, and he described the lobbying effort on both sides of the issue to Gun Week as “intense.” Wisconsin is one of the last three states which have no provision for legal carry for personal defense.
The prime mover behind CCW in Wisconsin, Sen. Dave Zien, told Gun Week that he was not surprised by the enormous pressure on Sherman to switch his vote as the Senate override approached. The vote was originally scheduled to have taken place Jan. 27, but was rescheduled by Assembly Speaker John Gard. The delay, he said, was to allow all Assembly members to be present.
Working against CCW was Assembly Democratic Leader Jim Kreuser of Kenosha.
Return to Archive Index