Says it all
It takes a lot for non-national, local news to make it to
The New Yorker, but
this sad story has. Even the caption on the photo says it all:
During the governorship of Scott Walker, the Wisconsin Supreme Court has continued its transformation from a congenial, moderately liberal institution into a severely divided conservative stronghold.
The attention of The New Yorker stems from a recent US Supreme Court decision upholding a Florida rule prohibiting candidates for election to state judgeships from soliciting campaign money. Of course, if you're an ideological RW judge, you don't have to ask for money. There are plenty of well funded groups that ride to your rescue with plenty of coin and boatloads of attack ads against your opponent.
In many of the thirty-nine states that elect judges, a dramatic rise in campaign contributions and related spending has caused a well-documented erosion of public confidence in state courts. The Supreme Court’s decision advanced the cause of fair courts. But it addressed only a tiny part of the problem that money and politics have created in American justice. A decision the same day by the Wisconsin Supreme Court provides an illustration of how destructive the problem can become.
(bolding is mine)
A very heavily promoted and propagandized Constitutional amendment recently passed in Wisconsin changing the selection of the Chief Justice of the Wisconsin Supreme Court. Since the Court was founded in 1852, the most senior Justice has automatically become the Chief Justice. With the newly passed amendment, the Chief Justice will now be elected by members of the State Supreme Court - a move designed to ensure that a RW Justice will become Chief, replacing liberal Shirley Abrahamson who has served as a Justice for the past 39 years and became the most senior member, therefore Chief Justice, in 1996.
Last week, as soon as the passage of the amendment was certified, the 4 RW justices of the State Supreme Court voted by email to make Justice Patience Roggensack their Chief Justice. The 3 liberal/moderate justices weren't even consulted or notified.
Powerful and heavily financed RW special interest groups like The Wisconsin Club for Growth and Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce have aggressively promoted RW candidates for the Wisconsin Supreme Court. Spending tens of millions of dollars with a large emphasis on poisonous, untrue attack ads, they've succeeded in essentially "buying" a majority of seats on the Wisconsin Supreme Court. Shirley Abrahamson, as Chief Justice, was the only obstacle standing in the way of their total domination over the court.
The election that finally gave them their long sought majority was so incredibly nasty that ethics charges were bought against the "winning" candidate, Michael Gableman, for lying about incumbent Justice Louis Butler Jr.
Gableman's ad ran in March 2008 during his campaign against then-Justice Louis Butler Jr. It discussed the case of Reuben Lee Mitchell, a child sex offender whose case Butler worked on when he was a public defender.
"Butler found a loophole. Mitchell went on to molest another child. Can Wisconsin families feel safe with Louis Butler on the Supreme Court?" the ad said.
But it did not tell viewers that Butler was unsuccessful in getting Mitchell out of prison and that Mitchell served his sentence before committing the subsequent crime.
Gableman beat Butler in April 2008, defeating an incumbent for the first time in four decades. After the election, the Judicial Commission filed a complaint that said Gableman violated the judicial ethics code by lying.
Naturally, Wisconsin media never debunked the ad so voters went to the polls thinking Butler, the first and only African American Justice on the State Supreme Court, protected pedophiles.
It took $5 million to buy that seat along with a great big, festering lie.
Gableman got and his seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court because the State Supreme Court tied on the ethics case. The 3-3 vote deadlocked the case (Butler, no longer on the Court and Gableman not allowed to vote on his own case) and killed it. Gableman still, shamefully, is a Justice on the Court.
That's how nasty it got.
Since then only the possible loss of David Prosser's seat stood in their way of all RW decisions, all the time. Prosser, notorious for screaming rants and foul language, had grabbed the neck of liberal Justice Ann Bradley during a discussion of Scott Walkers union-busting Act 10. Normally, that would have been chalked up as another off-the-wall Prosser episode, but Prosser was up for re-election in a few short months.
RW forces sprung to the rescue with millions more in ads to prop up Prosser and obedient Wisconsin media began running stories explaining the incident away by saying Bradley got her neck in the way of Prossers hands. In an uncomfortably close election, his opponent, Joanne Kloppenburg was declared the winner until a bag of "uncounted ballots" was discovered 3 days after the election by Waukesha County election head, Kathy Nicklaus which overturned the result in Prosser's favor.
HERE'S THE REAL REASON THEY NEED THE MAJORITY AND CHIEF JUSTICE
Not only does the RW need to maintain their majority control over the decision made by the Court, they also need the Chief Justice on "their side" controlling the agenda. The most important case they will decide this year will be on the continuation or demise of the second John Doe Probe.
RW donor groups The Wisconsin Club for Growth and Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce are under investigation for coordinating with Republican campaigns, particularly Scott Walkers. If those groups sound familiar, it's because they are the same groups that have spent tens of millions of dollars buying a State Supreme Court majority. None of the Justices that have received assistance from these groups have recused themselves and, because they have the majority of votes, none of them will be forced to recuse.
And here's where things become really interesting (from The New Yorker article):
With conservative political organizations under scrutiny, Walker petitioned the Wisconsin Supreme Court to decide whether state law justified the probe. Last December, the court agreed to hear the case and took the unusual step of scheduling oral argument over two days instead of one. Then it took a more unusual step and cancelled the argument, saying that it plans to rule on the matter based solely on briefs submitted in the case.
That's right. The Supremes won't be hearing ANY arguments in this case. The results, already a foregone conclusion considering the long history of ideological voting from the RW Justices, won't have any public scrutiny at all since there won't be oral arguments or any arguments at all.
And that's exactly what Scott Walker and the Wisconsin GOP want. They have had electoral success coordinating with those heavily financed groups and don't want any pesky legal troubles continuing that great deal. Walker, in particular, doesn't want a John Doe Probe following him around to early Republican primary states, either. He'll keep on using a heavy cologne to overpower the smell that surrounds him.
The RW controls the Wisconsin Governors office, legislature, and now totally owns our State Supreme Court lock, stock and barrel. The only thing that stands in their way are elections and RW front groups are standing by with more tens of millions of dollars turning Wisconsin into their very own Burger King where they get to have it their way all the time.
When the stench of corruption from the Wisconsin Supreme Court reaches the pages of The New Yorker, you know it's bad.
