Why is this man so angry?
This is really something to behold (YouTube, 6:49).
That's the same guy who collected $70K in $10K increments from out-of-State donors during the final days of his 2008 campaign, and during which he violated the Wisconsin code of judicial ethics by lying about his opponent, a sitting justice of the court. The ironies throughout this intemperate Republican rubber chicken spiel are just short of unbearable. Didn't anybody think to recall Gableman?*
The self-righteous affirmations of adherence to the text ring a bit hollow once you've literally rewritten the Wisconsin constitution and finally, he appears rather concerned about voter registration drives in predominantly** African-American Milwaukee neighborhoods.
So a little race hustling for the icing on the cake.
It's quite the remarkable performance: "Judicious."***
One thing's for sure, if Kloppenburg expected to settle this fellow down by her presence on the court, she must have been dreaming.
h/t Jim Rowen.
* As a member of the court, Michael Gableman presides over WisBar attorneys' compliance with ethical standards and practices. Seriously.
Where does Gableman's moral authority come from? You tell me.
** Exclusively, is probably more accurate.
*** That's one word that doesn't immediately spring to mind.
Oh, man. I knew I'd seen that vibe somewhere before.
ReplyDeleteWhy so angry? Clearly it's the random insertion of phrases like "ILLINOIZ LICENSE PLATES".
ReplyDeleteWatching that video, one would almost think that his disdain for prosecutors of environmental regulation violations is greater than his disdain for criminal defense attorneys.
ReplyDeleteCan't you also just feel how thick the irony in the room is when he calls her the "least qualified, most partisan candidate to run for the state supreme court in living memory"?
It's pretty incredible alright. Justice Crooks must just sit there and shake his head when he sees stuff like this.
ReplyDeleteI was waiting for him to call Kloppenberg a "bitch"
ReplyDeleteI'm thinking this guy needs to join Scotty and D-B Van Hollen on the recall petition list. Especially since we know just how corrupt he really is vs. 3 years ago.
ReplyDeleteFor a sitting supreme court justice to give an openly partisan speech two days before the election is stunning. This video would be a great law school final exam question, spot the violations of the Code of Judicial Ethics. Of course the irony is the ultimate sanctioning body is the state supreme court which has already reprimanded this hack.
ReplyDeleteAstonishing. Is recall a possibility?
For a sitting supreme court justice to give an openly partisan speech two days before the election is stunning. This video would be a great law school final exam question, spot the violations of the Code of Judicial Ethics. Of course the irony is the ultimate sanctioning body is the state supreme court which has already reprimanded this hack.
ReplyDeleteAstonishing. Is recall a possibility?
Nope, Gableman was never reprimanded and yep, "any incumbent elective officer" is subject to recall after serving the first year of their term.
ReplyDeleteRecall? Yeah, but then you'd need to find a half-million who know we have a Supreme Court.
ReplyDeleteRecall Gabelman, bingo! The Republican strategy seems to be to tie the recalls up in legal process, get it into the Supreme Court, then have their guys invalidate them. Except for the recalls of Democrats, of course, they are fine because the out-of-state canvassers were well vetted and responsible citizens.
ReplyDeleteNo no, Republicans never run to court to try and invalidate the will of the people.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the h/t, and I have been advising people with better Internet skills than mine to save the content, not just the URL.
ReplyDeleteMaybe someone in the legal community could produce a transcript that is annotated with citations to the code of judicial ethics?
The video is less than seven minutes long.
Could we get produced a document with edits that are color-coded or set off some way graphically?
I don't know that I want to watch it again.
ReplyDeleteJust scanned the Code of Judicial Conduct. This loophole below might shield him if he'd stuck with simply endorsing Prosser:
ReplyDelete"This subsection does not reach the matter of judge's endorsement of a candidate for judicial or other nonpartisan elective office. That matter is left for consideration together with other issues involving a judge's political and campaign activity by the committee the court will appoint to study and to make recommendations to the court."
However, in his speech he went well beyond endorsing Prosser, who it's worth noting was one of the three justices who spared him from reprimand or other sanctions re the Justice Butler campaign complaint.
Kloppenburg is an attorney for DOJ---she doesn't "choose" to prosecute environmental cases, she litigates those cases the AG/head of the EP unit wants pursued. Of course Gableman knows that but left a completely different impression with his audience, suggesting that she singlehandedly wielded her power to shut down business in WI. His description of her being the least qualified person to run for the court is utterly laughable from one who got his law degree from Hamline University.
I'd argue that even if he's allowed to endorse Prosser, he can't do it by smearing deliberately or inadvertently Prosser's opponent.
Howver, absent a different result after the recount, Gableman won't suffer any sanctions from his majority conservatives on the court. It's up to the citizens to recall him.
My impression is that Gableman has no use for codes of conduct governing judicial speech and would sooner fight to have them declared invalid than comply with them.
ReplyDelete