In Wisconsin, however, the people have something else.

They have the power, established by the progressive movement, to recall those elected officials who choose to govern not as representatives or men and women of conscience but as “elected monarchs.”

The recall power allows citizens to petition for a new election, which is held not at the end of a fixed term but in the midst of it. Recalls are difficult to initiate, demanding to implement and rare in number.

Yet they are a part of the democratic process. And there are times when it is appropriate to recall an elected official -- or at least try to do so. It was appropriate to mount a recall drive that sought to remove U.S. Sen. Joe McCarthy in 1954, barely a year after he had been re-elected by the people of Wisconsin. That recall drive collected more than 300,000 signatures. While that was not a sufficient number to force a new vote, it was sufficient to weaken McCarthy’s hand and to encourage even Republican senators in Washington to support censuring him for the abuses of power that are to this day described by one word: “McCarthyism.”