What, no bonus for Mike "Peppercorn" Gableman?

"We're broke." — Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, repeatedly

You have got to be effing kidding me:

Assistant Attorney General Maria Lazar, who defended Walker's collective bargaining law in an open meetings challenge and has handled the State's defense of Republican redistricting legislation, got a $1,000 bonus and a $1.50-an-hour raise in March, bumping her salary by more than $3,000 to $104,730.

Deputy Attorney General Kevin St. John, who defended the collective bargaining law in front of the State Supreme Court, got a $2.51-an-hour raise in March that adds up to more than $5,000 per year and brings his pay to $134,307.

Some defense.

Ms. Lazar admitted in a Dane County trial court that the Fitz Van Walker regime both broke the Wisconsin Open Meetings Law and violated the State constitution, which was pretty much dispositive in Judge Maryann Sumi's decision to enjoin Act 10, Scott Walker's "signature" union-busting "achievement"* and Mr. St. John, the lead attorney by the time the case got to the State Supreme Court, would have by rights lost that case but not for the alleged "conservatives" on the court dreaming up a jurisdiction unauthorized by the constitution.

Oh and by the way, contrary to the AP story, St. John & Co. were not "defend[ing] the collective bargaining law," they were defending the Wisconsin Republicans' breaking the law and violating the constitution.

This is what passes for meritoriousness under Scott Walker. Incroyable.

* From the MJS's comically fawning report of Walker's "barnstorming."

Prosser's conduct: Next steps

One Wisconsin Now is filing an open records request to obtain any written and electronic communications between the four conservative justices, David Prosser, Mike Gableman, Annette Ziegler and Patience Roggensack, and Scott Walker's office, the office of Mike Huebsch, and Scott and Jeff Fitzgeralds' offices.

You can visit the link to chip in a few bucks.

Walker wasn't a named party to the so-called "supervisory/original" action that the Supreme Court heard and decided but Deputy Attorney General Kevin St. John admitted — reluctantly — under questioning from the Chief Justice that it was indeed Scott Walker who instigated the petition. Mike Huebsch is Walker's Secretary of Administration who made the notorious estimate of $7.5 million to repair "damage" to the State Capitol building in the wake of demonstrations in February and March.

The actual figure turned out to be just over 100 grand, and even that included for repairs to existing wear and tear from years gone by, some of which was caused by people in wheelchairs. Assembly Speaker Jeff Fitzgerald, brother of Scott, is reportedly running for the U.S. Senate.

At least, that's what the Wausau Daily Herald editorial board said Fitzgerald told them. But then a spokesman for Fitzgerald said it would be against the law for Fitzgerald to say that. Not like the law prevented WISGOP legislative activities in the past, which the four "conservatives" on the Wisconsin Supreme Court said was perfectly fine with them.

A corporation, but not a Gableman, is a person

CAPITOL KAOS

A person may request the supreme court to take jurisdiction of an original action by filing a petition which may be supported by a memorandum. — Wis. Stat. § 809.70

Bet you didn't know that person could be Mike Gableman.

Until yesterday, to be sure, when neither did anybody else.

A person may request the court to exercise its supervisory jurisdiction or its original jurisdiction to issue a prerogative writ over a court and the presiding judge, or other person or body, by filing a petition and supporting memorandum. — § 809.51

That is, § 809.70 or § 809.71. Either one or the other. Not and. I refer the reader to the small catalog of propositional operators contained in any introductory text on logic, beginning from Aristotle's (c. 360 BCE).

Now Huebsch (by his counsel the Department of Justice) is a person:

PETITION FOR SUPERVISORY WRIT PURSUANT TO WIS. STAT.
§ 809.71 — State ex rel. Michael D. Huebsch, 04.07.2011

Yet the following appeared at 4:45 p.m. on June 14, in an unsigned order of the court but reputedly the handiwork of Mike Gableman:

On June 6, 2011, this court ... heard argument addressing whether the court should accept either the certification or the petition for supervisory/original jurisdiction or both; the court also heard argument on the merits of the pending matters.

The certification was a separate case, and was dismissed. The forward slash conjoining 'supervisory' to 'original' is a fabrication from whole cloth. So-called conservative jurisprudence by typographical insertion.

In the Wisconsin statutes, the distinction between the court's supervisory and original jurisdictions is codified by their separate numberings:
§ 809.70 and § 809.71. The Department of Justice chose the latter.

It would not have occurred to the Department of Justice to petition the court to take jurisdiction of an original action because Ozanne v. Fitzgerald could not, obviously, be an original action for the purposes of the Supreme Court's original jurisdiction. Hence the supervisory petition.

¶7 This court has granted the petition for an original action ...

No such petition existed, until the Gableman court manufactured it.

WMC's Mike Gableman, who a three-appellate-judge panel found in 2009 to have violated two separate provisions of the Wisconsin code of judicial ethics (Gableman was a judge on an "inferior court" — as Kevin St. John would have it — at the time) campaigned on a political platform of "strict constructionism" and the faithful adherence to legal texts.

Evidently those were lies as well.

And this is not the first time that Gableman has conjured a creative interpretation of the Supreme Court's jurisdictional authorities. The present instance is not of judicial activism, but of judicial arrogance.

Ironically, Gableman's cohort Justice Prosser purports to justify the court's exercising original jurisdiction by mysterious reference to the State constitution, according to an apparently broad reading of that document, or precisely that manner of reading denied to the people of Wisconsin, who sought only a reasonable — indeed, a practically de minimis — access to the legislative activities of their representatives.

The Republican legislative leaders betrayed even that.

Of course the largest irony of all is that the Gableman court attempts to validate its fiat on separation of powers grounds, but yesterday's decree indicates nothing except an amalgamation of partisan, political powers.

This space will return at the end of the month, fully recharged.

Wisconsin Supreme Court accepts five new cases

But none of them is "Petition of Walker."

WICourts.gov news release.

One is of a part to the ongoing Miranda warning wrangle, however.

Which reminds me, on Monday, Deputy AG Kevin St. John declared that "the Open Meetings Law is not a rule of constitutional law," by way of claiming the requirements of the OML are not explicitly mandated by the Wisconsin constitution. According to the identical reasoning, Mr. St. John might further argue that neither is the Miranda warning "a rule of constitutional law." However, we know that it is indeed a rule of constitutional law because former Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court (and formerly of Shorewood, Wisconsin) William Rehnquist told us so in the celebrated Miranda case, 2000's Dickerson v. United States.*

Thus if we apply the reasoning of Dickerson to Walker's predicament, the governor and his Republican friends and counsel don't fare so well.

So in retrospect maybe he/they didn't want to go there.

* This was a pretty good blawg poast, if I do say so meself.

Scott Walker and the separation of WISGOP powers

Advertisement: Please visit the CAPITOL KAOS archives

[Wis. Stat. Sec.] 165.25(1) [The department of justice shall] appear for the state and prosecute or defend all actions and proceedings, civil or criminal, in the court of appeals and the supreme court, in which the state is interested or a party, and attend to and prosecute or defend all civil cases sent or remanded to any circuit court in which the state is a party.

165.25(1m) If requested by the governor or either house of the legislature, appear for and represent the state, any state department, agency, official, employee or agent, whether required to appear as a party or witness in any civil or criminal matter, and prosecute or defend in any court or before any officer, any cause or matter, civil or criminal, in which the state or the people of this state may be interested.

Here's another interesting and thus far overlooked tidbit from last Monday's marathon session of the Wisconsin Supreme Court, wherein Deputy Attorney General Kevin St. John concedes directly to the Chief Justice that the Department of Justice is appearing not on behalf of Secretary of Capitol Building Maintenance Mike Huebsch, but on the explicit direction of the governor, Scott Walker. And what Walker is complaining about is, ironically, a separation of powers violation.

During St. John's oral presentation, the Chief Justice is engaging the lawyer on some procedural posturings. Recall that while the hearings were underway in Dane County Circuit Judge Maryann Sumi's court in Ozanne v. Fitzgerald, Judge Sumi issued a temporary restraining order. A TRO is not a "final judgment" and the difference between a TRO and a final judgment is determinative of how Scott Fitzgerald and the other defendants may attack a judge's disposition, be it final or temporary.

In Wisconsin there exists a right to appeal final judgments, but if the defendant Republican legislators here wish to attack the TRO, they must be granted permission to do so by the court of appeals. Thus did the Department of Justice file a motion for permission to appeal a non-final order (the TRO) on March 21 with the District IV Court of Appeals.

The court of appeals declined to entertain that motion, but rather certified ("passed on," or "kicked upstairs," in the vernacular) the DOJ's petition to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court announced nothing further with regard to that petition until June 3, when it issued an order consolidating it with the DOJ's petition for a supervisory writ, as in the interim between scheduling oral arguments on whether to entertain the supervisory writ, Judge Sumi did indeed issue a final judgment.

So the Chief Justice is wondering about from whence comes the DOJ's authority to bring the petition for a supervisory writ (a writ is a court order, and in this case the DOJ is seeking an order vacating Judge Sumi's disposition based on the Supreme Court's supervisory authority over the circuit courts). The petition for a supervisory writ was filed in the name of Mike Huebsch, but what the record transcribed below reveals is that the order came directly from Governor Walker himself, something Mr. St. John appears to be distinctly uncomfortable with admitting.

The exchange between the Chief Justice and the deputy AG, related to the foregoing issues of who gets to do what and when begins at 00:43:10 of Wisconsin Eye's video of the oral arguments and the CJ gets to the Walker's Point at 00:45:10. The ellipses are pauses, not edits.

CJA: Under what authority does the State bring this proceeding?

KSJ: The State brings this proceeding under [Wis. Stat. Sec. 165.25(1)(m) — see above].

CJA: 165 ... yes.

KSJ: 165.25, sub. 1m.

CJA: Point 25, one ...

KSJ: 1m.

CJA: What does that say, counsel?

KSJ: That provides, that says that the attorney general and I ... quote the statute [KSJ retrieves Volume 3 of the Wisconsin Statutes and Annotations] ...

CJA: 165 ... 25 ...

KSJ: It needs to be read in conjunction with sub. 1, but 1m provides that if requested by the governor or either house of the legislature ...

CJA: Okay.

KSJ: ... may ...

CJA: Did the governor make any request?

KSJ: Yes.

CJA: Is that on record?

KSJ: It's not part of the record for petition [for a supervisory writ]. The State appears in many actions at the request of the governor or on the legislature and wouldn't file that with the court. We'd be happy to do so if that were required.

CJA: Therefore, and represent the State. Okay, the court will take that under advisement. Is that what you're relying on, 'If requested by the governor, appear for and represent the State'?

KSJ: Mm hmm. In any matter in which the State or the people of this State may be interested. There's been a determination made ...

CJA: Oh wait, what about the sentence, "whether required to appear as a party or witness"? That clause.

KSJ: Mm hmm. In any ...

CJA: Well ...

KSJ: And prosecute or defend ...

CJA: Are you required to appear here as a party? Here?

KSJ: Uh, there's no requirement ...

CJA: Okay. So you're going on to, "and prosecute in any court," right?

KSJ: That's correct.

CJA: "In which the State or the people may be interested."

KSJ: That's correct.

CJA: Okay. This is one of the things that is ... and on page four of your Ozanne you rely on 165.25, but there you say only that the AG decides whether what's the best interest of the State so now you're relying on the governor, is that it?

KSJ: There is authority in this case from the governor, there is also authority in this court's precedent that says that the attorney general may appear before this court with or without the governor's approval to advance an interest of the State.

He goes on. But he's already admitted to the Chief Justice, who is more interested in the express language of the State statutes, that in this case what he's relying on is a request from the governor, Scott Walker.

So you have Republican Scott Walker, the chief executive branch officer, petitioning the Republican-controlled Supreme Court,* the top entity within the judicial branch, to in effect discipline a lower court because it ruled against his Republican pals and allies in the legislative branch. And what Walker is complaining about ultimately is a violation of the doctrine of constitutional separation of powers. That is one not-too-subtle irony.

Deputy AG St. John's pursed "mm hmms" indicate he was none too comfortable with the Chief Justice's line of inquiry. Witnesses at trial who answer "mm hmm" rather than "yes" are often admonished by the court for not speaking up clearly and affirmatively. I wonder why St. John was so reticent at providing this information, that the Department of Justice is acting on the direct order of Governor Scott Walker.

Because the named petitioner clearly has no idea what's going on.

Since Monday a slew of additional documents were filed with the State Supreme Court, but this space doesn't know whether Walker's directive to the DOJ is among them. It may well be quite an edifying read.

* Let's dispense with the "nonpartisan" façade for a moment. Everybody knows how many millions of dollars (and thousands of logically fallacious and unethical teevee ads) Republican-affiliated outfits have produced and spent to ensure and protect the current make-up of the court.

Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel editorial "bizarre"

Says it — or they, or she, or he — of this week's Wisconsin Supreme Court marathon oral arguments, characterizing as among Governor Scott Walker's lawyer's various claims and assertions:

... the bizarre argument articulated Monday by Deputy Attorney General Kevin St. John, who said during a state Supreme Court hearing that courts could not invalidate a statute because lawmakers violated the open meetings law.

While St. John's hour-long ramble was indeed occasionally bizarre to the extent the ethically-challenged judge Mike Gableman had several times interruptingly to leap from the bench — albeit not literally — to come to the attorney's assistance, the argument St. John was attempting to make is that courts could not invalidate a bill until it had become law.

Moreover, St. John is in denial over whether Republican lawmakers violated the Open Meetings Law (which they very clearly did: one of St. John's own colleagues admitted it on the record, leaving the trial court no choice but to enjoin the WISGOP shenanigans). What is bizarre is the Journal-Sentinel editorial board's reliance on the organ's own report of the proceedings, which claims Dane County Circuit Judge Maryann Sumi "was allowed" to file a brief in an action brought by (purportedly) Walker's right-hand building maintenance supervisor Mike Huebsch.

"Normally, judges don't file briefs in cases with the Supreme Court," reports the J-S, which is true as a general matter, I suppose, except in this case, the Dane County Circuit Court, Judge Sumi presiding, was named as a party to the action,* so it would be abnormal if a party to an appellate court case didn't file a brief. But the facts of the matter — which bear repeating once again — are that Judge Sumi was ordered to file the brief, pursuant to Wis. Stat. § 809.51(2) and pursuant to the Supreme Court's order of May 4, 2011. Those are just the plain facts.

And those would be kind of important points.

"Normally, Wisconsin circuit court judges don't flagrantly disobey orders of the Wisconsin Supreme Court," is more like it, and accurate.

* "Respondent," to be exact, which of itself should be self-explanatory.

Shorter Huebsch v. Sumi

If you don't have time to watch yesterday's entire marathon Wisconsin Supreme Court oral arguments, just watch these three lawyers.

Wisconsin Eye Part 2 of 3:

01:07:44 — Robert Jambois, counsel for Rep. Peter Barca
01:33:12 — Lester Pines, counsel for Sen. Mark Miller
02:05:18 — Roger Sage, counsel for Sec. of State Doug La Follette

Mr. Sage's presentation might be said to be optional, as he is addressing the question of whether 2011 Wisconsin Act 10 was published in the constitutional sense, and you already know all about that. In fact many of the issues raised by Messrs. Jambois and Pines would already be familiar to regular readers of this here blog. And while the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel is reporting that the justices "expressed skepticism" toward the reasoning contained in Judge Sumi's temporary and final rulings, which is true to some extent, you won't hear much skepticism from the bench during either the Jambois or the Pines presentations.

And while the Journal-Sentinel reports* that "the most aggressive questioning came from Justice Michael Gableman," it came during the presentation of Dane County DA Ismail Ozanne (00:01:18) who, with all due respect, is probably less used to addressing the structural constitutional questions at issue in these two consolidated cases.

Last night apparently there were some rumors circulating that the court was preparing to vacate Judge Sumi's ruling, which would have the effect of codifying 2011 Wisconsin Act 10.** If that were to come to pass, I suspect the law might again be enjoined immediately, on the same factual grounds its publication was enjoined in the first place. And the said codification would have the effect of rendering Gableman's objections moot almost in their totality, insofar as those objections were grounded in the beloved 1943 case Goodland v. Zimmerman, which teaches that a court may not interfere with the legislative process until a bill becomes law (that is, in Wisconsin, once its publication is made).

Gableman's apparent objections appear to presume that the trial court, where Judge Sumi presides, is a rule-making authority rather than a circuit court making a narrow decision based only on the facts presented in evidence to that particular court.*** In other words, the concerns expressed by Gableman and appearing in the lead paragraphs of the Journal-Sentinel report are representative of a slippery slope fallacy.

Generally courts do not make rulings grounded in logical fallacies.

But you never know, with this one.

In any event, the guy you have to watch is Justice Patrick Crooks, who raised concerns similar to those of my friend Bill Tyroler, who suggests that the authority conferred on the district attorney by the Open Meetings Law to challenge the constitutionality of the legislative process is itself an unconstitutional delegation of power by the legislature to the executive branch, under which auspices the district attorney operates.

As this space has been observing practically since the outset of this controversy, it seems to me the only way the court can vacate Judge Sumi's very conservative, very restrained reasoning is to find the provisions of the Open Meetings Law upon which Judge Sumi relied to be themselves violative of judge-made — or at least judge-inferred — constitutional law doctrine. Why the Wisconsin Department of Justice is pursuing the objective of restricting public access to the operation of State government is either a mystery or completely typical and expected of the Republican Scott Walker administration and its disciples and allies.

* And once again, it is simply not correct to say that Judge Sumi was "allowed" to file a legal brief further to building maintenance supervisor Mike Huebsch's petition to the Supreme Court for a supervisory writ directed at Judge Sumi. Judge Sumi was ordered by the Supreme Court to file the brief. And now she is being criticized for not disobeying that order. This is how absurd the Wisconsin Department of Justice, under the direction of Deputy Attorney General Kevin St. John, has become.

** a.k.a. "legislating from the bench."

*** Among the more amusing moments during yesterday's proceedings was when Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson directed Deputy AG St. John to cease and desist from referring to the circuit court as an "inferior court." The circuit court's function is different; it is not "inferior." And indeed the expression "inferior court" is plucked from federal law — which has no bearing on the cases at bar — where it appears in the federal Constitution. In fact, as this space has pointed out previously, despite the U.S. Constitution's reference to "inferior courts" which may be created from time to time by the Congress, the Article III judicial power inheres equally among the United States Supreme Court, the United States Courts of Appeal, and the United States District Courts (the parallel entities to the State circuit courts). Shirley is the best.

St. John, like many a right-wing ideologue, is a devotee of ad hominem.

Wisconsin Supreme Court schedules goat rodeo

SCOWI oral argument preview: Mike Gableman is "tireless, indefatigable and brilliant." — Justice David Prosser 04/18/11

In re: 2011AP000765-W and 2011AP000613-LV

This morning's line-up:

State ex rel Mike Huebsch: 50 minutes (Maria Lazar [?])
Dane County Circuit Court: 15 minutes (Dean Strang)
Dane County District Atty: 15 minutes (Ismail Ozanne)
State Rep. Peter Barca (D): 10 minutes (Bob Jambois*)
State Sen. Mark Miller (D): 10 minutes (Lester Pines)
Sec. of State Doug La Follette: 10 minutes (Roger Sage)
Huebsch rebuttal: 10 minutes [Misc. DOJ]

The festivities commence at 9:45 a.m., Central Standard Time.

Now maybe the Wisconsin Department of Justice will explain how and why Wisconsin's Open Meetings Law is unconstitutional, complete with citations to relevant 17th century English parliamentary common law.

Livetweeting (hopefully).

* Jambois should feature among the highlights.

eta 01: Deputy AG Kevin St. John appeared for State ex rel Huebsch and Dean Strang's law firm colleague Marie Stanton appeared for the Dane County Circuit Court (Judge Sumi). Those are all the attorneys the court heard from by 12:10 p.m. before adjourning for lunch until 1:30, so that's only two lawyers down and five to go. Gonna be a looong day.

Hard to say where things are going to shake out at this point but — and, real superficial observation here — the court's so-called conservatives appear to be more inclined to sympathize with the DOJ's demand for what is essentially judicial activism and legislating from the bench.

eta 02: "17th century English parliamentary common law." Think I was joking eh? St. John actually invoked it, without being prompted. It's supposed to override the laws of Wisconsin. This is how the DOJ argues.

Res ipsa loquitur.

Wisconsin letter of the day

From Lester Pines, counsel for State Sen. Mark Miller, to the clerk of the Wisconsin Supreme Court, blasting Deputy Attorney General Kevin St. John for coming "perilously close" to violating SCR 20:8.2* (.pdf; 3 pgs.).

Meanwhile the Supreme Court's docket still shows oral argument scheduled for Monday, June 6, related to Scott Walker's building maintenance supervisor Mike Huebsch's petition for a supervisory writ, a petition grounded in challenging a temporary injunction that doesn't even exist any more (it was superseded by Sumi's final judgment).

Fitz Van Walker's multi-ring circus gets more ridiculous every day.

It's gotten so bad that our old friend perfesser to the wing-nuts Rick Esenberg, at the Marquette law school's faculty blog refers to "[t]he Zimmerman and Goodland cases" in support of his allegedly profound doctrinal claims, despite Goodland v. Zimmerman being one case.**

I guess when all you have is hand waving, inventing precedent works too.

And Journal Communications, Inc. loves the guy, of course.

It's comical.

* Supreme Court Rule 20:8.2: "A lawyer shall not make a statement that the lawyer knows to be false or with reckless disregard as to its truth or falsity concerning the qualifications or integrity of a judge ... "

** Goodland v. Zimmerman is a 1943 decision of the Wisconsin Supreme Court. If the Open Meetings Law didn't contain eleventeen provisions expressly superseding the holding in Goodland, this case would be a slam dunk, and Judge Sumi would have ruled opposite to what she has done. What I find amusing is that so-called judicial conservatives (e.g., Rick Esenberg) now deriding Judge Sumi for following to the letter what the legislature has laid down instead of the holding of seven "black robed elites" in Goodland will just as facilely in different circumstances deride similarly situated judges for following judge-made doctrine instead of the clear directives of the democratically elected legislature. There are no judicial "principles" to so-called judicial conservatism. It is purely a matter of what is convenient under which circumstances that are most suitable for the furtherance of conservative political policy, in this case, the gutting of the collective bargaining rights of public employees.

Other examples, from the work of Justice Prosser, may be found here.

Conversely, Judge Sumi's reasoning is an example of what conservative jurisprudence is supposed to be. Which is why, if it does indeed come to pass that the "conservatives" on the Wisconsin Supreme Court do get around to reversing Judge Sumi, as is desperately pleaded for by the Fitz Van Walker regime and its disciples, that court's own reasoning cannot be anything other than tortured and circuitous by comparison to Judge Sumi's. And the attendant celebration by the disciples will be even sillier.

How Patrick McIlheran lies for the WISGOP

Perfect example right here:

One Dane County judge rules that collective bargaining reform is unacceptable ...

This is your Journal Communications, Inc. brand of journalism.

But as one Dane County judge very clearly explained, both the federal Constitution and the Wisconsin constitution confer the judicial power equally to both higher and lower courts.* And as one Dane County judge very clearly explained, her ruling was directed at "the March 9, 2011 action of the Legislature's Joint Committee of Conference" and not whether the Walker administration's policy was acceptable or not.

Journal Communications, Inc.'s Patrick McIlheran is flat-out lying.

On the other hand, the Wisconsin Department of Justice, which is "representing the Republicans," makes repeated explicit defenses of Republican political policy in its latest filing with the Supreme Court pursuant to its attempt to have that court legislate from the bench.

The DOJ, on behalf of Scott Walker's infamous building maintenance supervisor Mike Huebsch, has gone so far as to suggest that the one Dane County judge, Maryann Sumi, violated the State code of judicial ethics by responding to the DOJ's petition for a supervisory writ (it's not an appeal, as has been widely reported). Now that is remarkable.

The Supreme Court, which does indeed have superintending authority over the (lower) circuit courts, on May 4 ordered Judge Sumi to file a response to the Huebsch/DOJ petition. Yes, ordered. The DOJ suggests that Judge Sumi should have exercised her option not to respond. The Wisconsin Rules of Appellate Procedure, at Wis. Stat. § 809.51(2), allow that a respondent to a petition for supervisory writ "may file a letter stating that he or she does not intend to file a response."

In other words, a respondent is not exempt or excepted from the Supreme Court's order but may disobey an order of the Supreme Court. Respondents to petitions for a supervisory writ are not limited to "court[s] and the presiding judge[s]," but the petition may be filed against "other person[s] or bod[ies]." And clearly Judge Sumi is in a different position vis-à-vis the Supreme Court than other persons or bodies not courts and presiding judges. Yet the Wisconsin Department of Justice suggests she should have disobeyed the Supreme Court's order.

Obviously Judge Sumi did not disobey an order of the Supreme Court.

And for not disobeying the Supreme Court's order, the Department of Justice is now veiledly threatening to file a motion for recusal against Judge Sumi, despite the fact that the ultimate determination for Judge Sumi's disqualification from the case of Ozanne v. Fitzgerald resides with Judge Sumi, once again, according to the black letter State law.

So at this point the Department of Justice is merely throwing stuff against the wall to find out if any of it will stick, in the course of its "representation of the Republicans." Thus whose impartiality is under question here is pretty obvious. And it sure ain't Judge Sumi's.

All of which demonstrates at least three things: (1) the ideological zealotry of Deputy Attorney General Kevin St. John, (2) Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen's acquiescence to Mr. St. John getting on this breakaway, and (3) the WISGOP Republicans' abject terror at attempting to have their union-busting bill passed by a non-illegal procedure.

McIlheran's bald lie is put forth in service of advertising his appearance tomorrow morning on another Journal Communications, Inc. buffoon's teevee show, Charlie Sykes's Sunday Insight [sic], which runs on Journal Communications, Inc.'s teevee station, TMJ-4. And of course Sykes is also an employee of Journal Communications, Inc.'s radio station, WTMJ.

There you have it, Journal Communications, Inc.'s corpo-blanketing of Milwaukee media with conservative Republican talking points. Because I wouldn't expect a discussion of the Rules of Appellate Procedure among Charlie Sykes and his guests tomorrow, who also include one of the most absurd conservative Republican political hacks in Wisconsin, Brian Fraley.

Roughly as absurd as the political hacks at Journal Communications, Inc.

* Matter of fact the same principle was invoked here in defense of J.B. Van Hollen, which days of defending JBVH at this space are long gone.