[Justice David] Prosser's bid for re-election was nearly undermined when opponents of a controversial Republican bill to strip public employees of collective bargaining rights painted him as a partisan hack. — Steven Elbow, (Madison) Capital TimesNo, Prosser painted himself as a partisan hack. And Prosser never did categorically disavow those remarks, instead putting them down to his campaign manager's having "too much Waukesha County in him."
Turns out Prosser had barely enough (0.46%) Waukesha County in him.
Here's a very good piece on the court, by the way.
a very good piece
ReplyDeleteThat kind of astute, long-term perspective is almost extinct. Joy Cardin's week in review used to regularly feature former GOP state senator Walter John Chilsen who, unlike the wingnut pretender who uses the appellation, really is a "Walking Wiki of Wisconsin Politics."
This fellow criticizes Bill Lueders' "leftist Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism", but has a decided point of view himself - "forced union dues", what a crock. By his account, the discord goes back to Thompson's appointees, but it really all stems from "liberal special-interests in the post-war era [which] have aimed increasingly at Supreme Court elections to keep the scaffolding of liberal jurisprudence from toppling." That's when I stopped reading.
ReplyDeleteHe's got a point, though. The rise of today's increasingly partisan version of judicial politics can be traced to conservative reaction to the decisions of the Warren Court, and the author is describing its Wisconsin corollary.
ReplyDelete(rise = lowering.)
ReplyDeletePoint taken. I'd argue the real battle goes back to FDR and the titanic battles on the US Supreme Court at that time, battles that Roosevelt and his allies won decisively. Then when Thermidor in the 1950s didn't roll back the New Deal, but even dared to advance it (Brown v Board of Education!), the reactionaries were furious with the likes of Eisenhower and Earl Warren.
ReplyDeleteToday's conservatives also like to pin the blame on Ted Kennedy for tarring Robert Bork as a forcer of "back alley abortions." Bork tried to spin away from his radical views during his confirmation hearings, and was punished for his disingenuousness by the Senate. Then Bork went on to reaffirm his radical views -- up the ante, in fact -- in bitter jeremiads published after his rejection, affirming the Senate's suspicions. Then conservatives managed a radical in Clarence Thomas.
ReplyDeleteThat's when I stopped reading
ReplyDeleteHe has his annoying tics, but he doesn't mean leftist the way the argle-bargle wingnuts do. That's an OG conservative there.
Yes: he distinguishes between judicial conservatives and political conservatives, and note how he raises the question of scholarship and suggests scholarship is a vanishing criterion for eligibility to the State's highest court. Familiar themes both!
ReplyDeleteBy the way I think Robert Bork's greatest accomplishment is being the most sarcastic person in America. Some of these essays are among his finest achievements in that regard.
ReplyDeleteMoney transformed Kloppenburg to a contender? I thought it was outrage at Scott Walker and the equation Prosser=Walker, and the money followed. I suspect she would have won if she could have mustered more positive reasons to support her and not just anti-Prosser/Walker reasons, and of course Prosser benefited from more money.
ReplyDeleteThat's when I stopped reading.
You don't have to agree with all his conclusions. What I found most valuable is the historical perspective which, as gt noted above, is a rarity for the local press.
ReplyDeleteBut there is some validity to the claim third-party money made her a contender. Look at 2009, when no third-party money ensured Randy Koschnick, a well-spoken and presentable (but doctrinally inept) conservative with judicial experience, was never a contender.
(That was when Shirley Abrahamson won 69 of 72 counties in a State we are told cannot abide liberal judges.)