really hard to say without getting estimates from every county and municipal clerk in a legislative district."

Wisconsin Legislative Technology Services Bureau Senate District 1 (left) and Assembly District 42 (right) would sit vacant for over a year given Gov. Scott Walker's decision not to call special elections.

Democratic leaders in the Legislature have challenged Walker's justification for not calling special elections for Lasee and Ripp's former seats. "My concern is that residents in the 1st Senate District will ultimately go approximately a year without representation," Senate Minority Leader Jennifer Shilling, D-La Crosse, told the Door County Pulse.

However, there's no escaping the partisan implications of special elections in 2018, from either the Democratic or Republican vantage point. Walker staked out his position before Patty Schachtner, a Democrat from River Falls,(58.6 percent in 2016) and Lasee (61.5 percent in 2014) got lower percentages in their last elections than [Republican former District 10 state Sen. Sheila] Harsdorf (63.2 percent)."

In search of special-elections history

Gov. Walker's refusal to call special elections for the state Senate District 1 and Assembly District 42 seats goes against precedent, including his own previous actions. A WisContext analysis of 105 legislative special elections in the state, from 1971 to February 2018, suggests that swiftly calling them is a well-established gubernatorial norm. In 26 of these instances, governors called a special election for a state or Congressional legislative seat before or on the same day the incumbent's resignation formally became effective. In the rest of the cases analyzed, governors waited an average of 17 days after the