From an article in Mother Jones this morning, the question of whether or not Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice David Prosser is partisan seems to have been pretty much settled. Although Prosser described himself as "in the political center" just yesterday at a debate sponsored by the Rotary Club of Milwaukee between himself and challenger JoAnne Kloppenburg, his endorsements make it clear how much of a lie that is.
Yesterday, the California-based Tea Party Express sent an email to all its members announcing its formation of a Wisconsin State PAC, expressly for the purpose of reelecting Prosser. The email alert states that a loss for Prosser means "Barack Obama wins," but a win assures that the Wisconsin Supreme Court "will remain a Court with a center-right tilt grounded in the Constitution." The email also helpfully adds that "You can contribute any amount - since this is a State PAC there are NO contribution limits, and corporate contributions ARE accepted."
Prosser has been backpedaling - hard - away from his strong and pretty blatant Tea Party ties in the past few weeks, once he realized that the people of Wisconsin were actually pretty darn angry about this whole Walker budget thing. But his protestations now do not make the evidence disappear. Last year he spoke at an Americans for Prosperity convention in the Dells alongside Justice Gableman, Wisconsin Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen, and “Joe the Plumber.” Last month he spoke at the tea party group Rock River Patriots’ meeting in Jefferson about his “campaign and judicial philosophy.” The tea party group Fox Valley Initiative put out a call to action before the February primary encouraging its members to vote for Prosser in order to preserve the state Supreme Court’s conservative majority. The Patriot Action Network (also Tea Party, in case you are seeing a theme here) put out an alert before the primary for members “to vote for the only proven Pro-Life/Pro-Family/Limited Government candidate we have running for the Wisconsin Supreme Court -- DAVE PROSSER.”
The Tea Party Express has some muscle behind it. It's the Koch brothers' baby (even though they really, really tried to hide that fact) and was largely responsible for Joe Miller's victory in the Alaska primary over Lisa Murkowski. We happily know how that turned out in the end (not that Murkowski is good, per se, but it's a lesser of two evils kind of deal).
I think it's time for Prosser to stop trying to hide his hard right ideology. And fortunately for us, Tea Partiers around the nation are making it more and more difficult for him to claim the center of the political road.
Vote Kloppenburg on April 5th!