The Destruction of the Wisconsin Supreme Court

[hue]

http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/the-destruction-of-the-wisconsin-supreme-court

Last week, the United States Supreme Court upheld a Florida judicial rule that prohibits candidates for election to state judgeships from personally soliciting money for their campaigns. “Judges are not politicians,” Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., wrote in the majority opinion in the 5-4 decision, “even when they come to the bench by way of the ballot.” He went on, “Simply put, Florida and most other States have concluded that the public may lack confidence in a judge’s ability to administer justice without fear or favor if he comes to office by asking for favors.”

There is no need for “may” in that sentence. 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.

Under a newly approved state constitutional amendment, which ended the practice of having the court’s most senior justice serve as chief, the justices chose their chief justice for the first time since the court was created, in 1852. By a vote of 4-3, reflecting the Wisconsin court’s split between conservatives and others, they picked Patience Drake Roggensack, a conservative who has been on the court for a dozen years. They ousted the liberal Shirley S. Abrahamson, on the court for thirty-nine years and, as chief justice from 1996 until last week, the longest-serving chief in state history...

...This is the latest drama in a decadelong saga that, largely through money-fuelled and often nasty judicial elections, has intensified the turn of the Wisconsin Supreme Court from a congenial, moderately liberal institution into a severely divided conservative stronghold. More to the point, the elections have reduced it from one of the nation’s most respected state tribunals into a disgraceful mess.

************************

X-posted in Politics

[midnight]

1. Did Judge Abrahamson's court case to block this from happening get a ruling yet?

[dragonlady]

2. Not yet

A motion hearing is scheduled in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin on May 15 at 9 am. This will be at the Federal Courthouse in Madison. The judge indicated in the prior hearing, when he refused to grant an injunction, that he could order her reinstated if she won her case on the merits.

[midnight]

3. Thank you for this important information.

[hue]

4. Yes I can't wait for this.