Not so fast. State Republicans want to see a breakaway candidate's paperwork. GOP Chair Reince Priebus says Rep. Jeff Wood will need to produce all his documentation. "That's important, because under the statute, when you shift candidacy in your docuemnts to a different party label — in this case an independent — those documents are important to have, in order to evaluate whether the later documents are valid."
Wood , who's served three terms representing a Chippewa Valley Assembly District as a Republican, filed his candidacy papers as an independent this week . Priebus says that caught the party off guard. "We discovered this on Tuesday afternoon," says Priebus, noting that there was no way the party could get paperwork to elections officials prior to that day's filing deadline. "Getting a candidate and 200 signatures from Chippewa Falls down to Madison in three hours was going to be impossible. But we will get a candidate in the ballot. There will be a Republican on the ballot in November." Priebus says they'll accomplish that through a write-in candicacy in the September primary — although the party as yet has no candidate.
