So lemme get this straight.
Milwaukee residents voted nearly 70% to enact an ordinance expanding sick leave provisions for employees, which survived conservative Republican legal challenges all the way to the State Supreme Court, and now Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, who swept into office on a Tea Partyish platform and believes government is too powerful, is exercising that power to void the plebiscite.
Our Fitz Van Walker regime really does detest workers, does it not.
Relative to the overhelmingness of a 70% majority — almost unheard of in American politics — Scott Walker won the executive mansion with 52% of the vote last November. More recently incumbent Justice David Prosser achieved a 00.48% (50.24% to 49.76%) margin over challenger JoAnne Kloppenburg, who posted substantial gains throughout the State in counties that went for Walker just months ago and for Prosser in the February Supreme Court primary.
This, or so we are told by certain representatives of Journal Communications, Inc. (JRN), the State's largest media conglomerate, was an enormous validation of Walker's policies. Incidentally Steven J. Smith, JRN's CEO, is a board member of the Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce (MMAC), which filed suit* against the sick leave ordinance. The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, JRN's print organ, editorialized against the ordinance on several occasions without identifying this — you would think — pertinent fact.
Justice Prosser, sitting on an evenly divided court, sided with arch conservative Justices Roggensack and Gableman last October (Justice Ziegler — who is figuratively joined at the hips with Roggensack and Gableman — to the undoubted chagrin of the MMAC, sat it out) in seeking to continue a circuit court's injunction** against the ordinance, an injunction the District I Court of Appeals vacated.
In sum, a conservative Republican governor and Supreme Court justice, both installed in Madison on the slimmest of majorities, would sweep away the clear will of the people of Milwaukee with the aid of Journal Communications, Inc.'s various ink-stained*** wretches and radio shouters. And they say this is what democracy looks like.
Now it may be that the sick leave ordinance is a bad idea, that it penalizes employers, or that the vagaries of its text leave open the benefits to abuse by fallible human nature — what benefits aren't — but the numbers are clear, and they rank GOP hypocrisy near the top.
More from Paul Secunda, a professor of employment law at Marquette University, who explains the constitutional implications of Walker's latest decree to a non-Journal Communications, Inc. media outlet.
* JRN's Charlie Sykes Rule for Wis. Radicals: "Litigate everything."
** Yes, you read that correctly. There's been a lot of weeping and bellyaching from conservative Republicans pursuant to a similar situation arising from a Madison court, where a FitzWalker collective bargaining agreement bill is under a writ of injunction, but no such GOP tear was shed when the sick leave ordinance was so enjoined.
That is, those Republicans respect the rule of law only when it's convenient, which is to my mind the most resonant takeaway here.
*** Or E-ink-stained wretches, I guess they would be nowadays.
April 14, 2011
April 13, 2011
Out-of-State agitator
Scott Walker went to Florida for speech
While there, Scott Walker stopped by the West Palm Beach offices of the conservative website NewsMax on Friday.None more wing-nut. We're talkin' clinically wing-nut.
However, unlike the Pope of Rome . . .
There are The Popes of Madison County:
Fitzgerald may be forced to waive his immunity (.pdf; 2 pgs).
In which agents of Wisconsin AG J.B. Van Hollen urge the State Supreme Court to hasten the impending doom of their pleadings.
More (Shane McGowan and the) Popes.
eta 01 via @news3jessica:
eta 02 Bob Jambois responds: Page one & page two.
Absolutely priceless and having the perfect tone. :notworthy:
Fitzgerald may be forced to waive his immunity (.pdf; 2 pgs).
In which agents of Wisconsin AG J.B. Van Hollen urge the State Supreme Court to hasten the impending doom of their pleadings.
More (Shane McGowan and the) Popes.
eta 01 via @news3jessica:
Spokeswoman for Supreme Court says the collective bargaining case "will be handled in due course."Translation.
eta 02 Bob Jambois responds: Page one & page two.
Absolutely priceless and having the perfect tone. :notworthy:
Scott Fitzgerald has more immunity than the Pope
Thou art served.
No joke. Wisconsin Republican Senate leader Scott Fitzgerald enjoys greater immunity from civil lawsuits than does the Pope.* Seriously.
* An alleged head of state.
No joke. Wisconsin Republican Senate leader Scott Fitzgerald enjoys greater immunity from civil lawsuits than does the Pope.* Seriously.
* An alleged head of state.
Charlie Sykes's Rules for Wisconsin Radicals
Such a sad little man, as Ricky Gervais would say.
The medium wave howler's howling irony is pervasive:
* "Rules" is being overly generous. It's the law.
The medium wave howler's howling irony is pervasive:
Litigate everything.Like, file a frivolous lawsuit in Oconto County.
Bully, intimidate, and threaten ...Like, issue an arrest warrant for a six-months-pregnant woman (pursuant to the failed obiter dictum of the Oconto County court).
[Use] the open meetings law to tie up the union bill.To hell with the Wisconsin constitution, eh Charlie?
Break laws, ignore rules ...Sykes's BFF Scott Walker broke the law when he shut the people out of the Capitol. Walker's BFF Scott Fitzgerald ignored the rules* when he gave one hour and fifty-seven minutes notice for a legislative meeting. Sykes gives no examples, but he couldn't top those anyway.
Remember: there is no voter fraud, except when the charge works for our benefit.Remember: This is Sykes talking about liberals and Democrats.
Citing no credible evidence, Charlie Sykes, in the aftermath of last Tuesday’s squeaker of a Supreme Court election, alluded to the likelihood of "voter fraud" in Milwaukee. It was the explanation that the conservative WTMJ AM 620 talker proffered for why challenger JoAnne Kloppenburg appeared to have just narrowly edged out incumbent Justice David Prosser in the balloting.Erik Gunn's Inside Track. Do read Gunn's entire piece because you probably haven't heard the last of what went on in Waukesha County.
Accuse conservatives of hypocrisy a lot.'Fraid that can't be helped Charlie. Y'all beg for it.
Never, ever stop.Well he got that one right at least.
* "Rules" is being overly generous. It's the law.
April 12, 2011
Scott Walker constitutional violations continue
No ... ex post facto Résumé shall be passed.This is just unbelievable:
— Article I, Section 9
Walker said Tuesday [with a straight face, apparently] that he'd ordered that a son of a prominent supporter be demoted because there were "more qualified" candidates available.Our Hero! A wise and principled Leader, yes? Decisive.
The son, age 27, who didn't even have a college degree, was promoted to an $81.5K per annum position* in the Scott Walker administration over other far more experienced applicants with a Ph.D. and an iron ring respectively. The son's father, a construction industry lobbyist, had rounded up north of $120K for Walker's political campaign. The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel's muckraker Daniel Bice broke the whole unseemly mess, a righteous conflagration ensued, and the son was delivered back to his $64.7K position, to which appointment Walker had given the benediction in January. This obviously only stoked the flames some more — Golly, who could have seen that coming — until the son quietly resigned altogether.
Now today Scott Walker says this, yet they knew there were "more qualified" candidates to begin with. It's one thing for Walker to pursue his agenda, which he was awarded a whopping 52% mandate* to pursue; that's fine. But please don't treat us like complete idiots.
And give Mr. Bice his proper due for one hell of a job well done.
* As an administrator of regulatory matters, if you can believe that.
** Compared to Justice Prosser's 50.24% mandate.
More Waukesha County hijinks
Or: What do they put in the Van De Water out there anyways?*
Mac Davis is another dandy.
And then there's Ellen Nowak.
* Be sure to follow the link(s) to (and at) The Legal Watchdog.**
** "This guy is a blogger," as Journal Communications, Inc.'s Mabel Wong and O. Ricardo Pimentel would say, but he's also duly credentialed and as such quite capable of the "heavy lifting."
eta 01: Whoops, almost forgot WaukCo. DA Brad Schimel.
eta 02: Jim Bouman — 'You scratch my mossback, I'll scratch yours.'
Mac Davis is another dandy.
And then there's Ellen Nowak.
* Be sure to follow the link(s) to (and at) The Legal Watchdog.**
** "This guy is a blogger," as Journal Communications, Inc.'s Mabel Wong and O. Ricardo Pimentel would say, but he's also duly credentialed and as such quite capable of the "heavy lifting."
eta 01: Whoops, almost forgot WaukCo. DA Brad Schimel.
eta 02: Jim Bouman — 'You scratch my mossback, I'll scratch yours.'
John Nichols on looking bad on "The Ed Show"
An occasional society of Federalists newsletter
John Nichols, who writes for The Nation and the Madison Capital Times, was on MSNBC last night telling Ed Schultz there needs to be a federal investigation into the Wisconsin Supreme Court election.
The only reason he gave is that it looks bad and I agree, it does look bad from a variety of angles. But simply looking bad doesn't raise any federal questions — that is, those that fall within the exclusive ambit of the federal government* — or even implicate any of the provisions of the 14th Amendment, which is one route through which the feds might exercise authority over the preserve of an individual State.
Furthermore one of those relevant provisions, the Equal Protection Clause, is generally a last resort, and almost never a first resort.
And besides, as a practical matter, there's no reason to believe federal authorities are any more competent to review whatever irregularities may have occurred. US Attorney General Eric Holder should perhaps apprise himself of the situation through his agents on the ground here at the US Attorney's Office, but it's probably much better if he and his colleagues don't even comment at this juncture.
Except maybe to reinforce the point that this is Wisconsin's business.
There's already enough nonsense flying around as it is (including, arguably, these appeals for an immediate federal intervention**).
On the other hand it's always struck me as a failing of the US Constitution that it leaves the administration of elections to individual States, which in turn leave them to individual counties, to individual precincts, and ultimately to individual persons like Kathy Nickolaus, a renegade partisan elections official with her own cumbersome, jerry-rigged, and outdated computer applications.
That's nuts, in a word.
While the election at issue here was only a Statewide affair, Nickolaus has apparently used her same idiosyncratic procedures during fall elections, which involve federal offices. There needs to be federal standards that would restrict the actions of Kathy Nickolaus and others like her. That much is pretty obvious to this observer.
And while the federalist electoral regime was all good when scraps of parchment and quill pens were the only means of voting, those obsolete presumptions of the olden days just don't cut it anymore.
* Or at the least within a shared federal/State ambit.
** According to one headline I scanned over last night, Justice Prosser called them "preposterous." Your humble scribe is inclined to concur.
John Nichols, who writes for The Nation and the Madison Capital Times, was on MSNBC last night telling Ed Schultz there needs to be a federal investigation into the Wisconsin Supreme Court election.
The only reason he gave is that it looks bad and I agree, it does look bad from a variety of angles. But simply looking bad doesn't raise any federal questions — that is, those that fall within the exclusive ambit of the federal government* — or even implicate any of the provisions of the 14th Amendment, which is one route through which the feds might exercise authority over the preserve of an individual State.
Furthermore one of those relevant provisions, the Equal Protection Clause, is generally a last resort, and almost never a first resort.
And besides, as a practical matter, there's no reason to believe federal authorities are any more competent to review whatever irregularities may have occurred. US Attorney General Eric Holder should perhaps apprise himself of the situation through his agents on the ground here at the US Attorney's Office, but it's probably much better if he and his colleagues don't even comment at this juncture.
Except maybe to reinforce the point that this is Wisconsin's business.
There's already enough nonsense flying around as it is (including, arguably, these appeals for an immediate federal intervention**).
On the other hand it's always struck me as a failing of the US Constitution that it leaves the administration of elections to individual States, which in turn leave them to individual counties, to individual precincts, and ultimately to individual persons like Kathy Nickolaus, a renegade partisan elections official with her own cumbersome, jerry-rigged, and outdated computer applications.
That's nuts, in a word.
While the election at issue here was only a Statewide affair, Nickolaus has apparently used her same idiosyncratic procedures during fall elections, which involve federal offices. There needs to be federal standards that would restrict the actions of Kathy Nickolaus and others like her. That much is pretty obvious to this observer.
And while the federalist electoral regime was all good when scraps of parchment and quill pens were the only means of voting, those obsolete presumptions of the olden days just don't cut it anymore.
* Or at the least within a shared federal/State ambit.
** According to one headline I scanned over last night, Justice Prosser called them "preposterous." Your humble scribe is inclined to concur.
Legal Disclaimer: Not affiliated with the Federalist Society.
April 11, 2011
The Jesuit institution down the road
Tweet the Marquette University Democrats:
Marquette University is the same that refused to hire a department administrator simply because she's gay. Forgive them, Father, etc.
More Jodi O'Brien
@michellemalkin speech at @MarquetteU tonight was full of hate and lies about hard working union members, teachers, and college progressivesHate and lies aren't quite the Jesuit mission I recall, but whatever.
Marquette University is the same that refused to hire a department administrator simply because she's gay. Forgive them, Father, etc.
More Jodi O'Brien
Westlaw's missing La Follette v. Stitt headnote
The court held it lacked constitutional authority to intermeddle in the procedural affairs of the legislature after the Republican LGBT caucus went dancing at La Cage and forgot to invite Glenn Grothman along.
(It's funny 'cause it's not an unreasonably inaccurate metaphor.)
(It's funny 'cause it's not an unreasonably inaccurate metaphor.)
Listen to this guy here:
He knows what he's talking about.
Quit paying attention to radio clowns and calumnists for once.
This nation was founded in Reason.
More Ginkowski.
Quit paying attention to radio clowns and calumnists for once.
This nation was founded in Reason.
More Ginkowski.
Kathleen Falk v. Fitzwalkerstan
Calendar reminder:
Oral argument scheduled for Wednesday, April 13, at 1:15 p.m.
The action challenges fiscally related elements in the allegedly non-fiscal 2011 Wisconsin Act 10. Falk is the Dane County Executive.
Court official: Judge Maryann Sumi.
Oral argument scheduled for Wednesday, April 13, at 1:15 p.m.
The action challenges fiscally related elements in the allegedly non-fiscal 2011 Wisconsin Act 10. Falk is the Dane County Executive.
Court official: Judge Maryann Sumi.
UW law prof Althouse "remains birther-curious"
Via Lawyers, Gun$ and Money.
In related news, concerned parties sought a permanent restraining order against celebrated online personality Meade Althouse, enjoining him from trolling internets discussion boards. "He's clearly a hazard to himself and to others," said a source close to the investigation.
By the way, this here is one of the funniest threads of all times.
In related news, concerned parties sought a permanent restraining order against celebrated online personality Meade Althouse, enjoining him from trolling internets discussion boards. "He's clearly a hazard to himself and to others," said a source close to the investigation.
By the way, this here is one of the funniest threads of all times.
April 10, 2011
Come to think of it that's not such a bad idea
JRN, Inc. calumnist McIlheran, cornered, warns:
Governor Scott Walker's latest legal gambit as filed by his latest petitioner,* Department of Administration Secretary Mike Huebsch, is to suggest the Open Meetings Law itself is unconstitutional.
While not overtly stated, the implication's sub silentio whisper** is inescapable, when viewed** in light of the existing evidence and the petitioner's presentation of the relevant Supreme Court precedent.
They'll likely come right out and say it in due time. More tomorrow.***
* Petition for Supervisory Writ, April 7 (.pdf; 37 pgs.).
Shorter Huebsch: We're suing everyone and everything, everywhere.
** Sorry for the mixed metaphor. Poetry is not my main bag.
*** -ish.
If lawmakers concede the case by starting the bill over (complete with bucket-banging mobs and 61-hour debates), it will encourage Democrats to haul every piece of Walker's agenda into court the moment it passes.Can't hardly wait.
Governor Scott Walker's latest legal gambit as filed by his latest petitioner,* Department of Administration Secretary Mike Huebsch, is to suggest the Open Meetings Law itself is unconstitutional.
While not overtly stated, the implication's sub silentio whisper** is inescapable, when viewed** in light of the existing evidence and the petitioner's presentation of the relevant Supreme Court precedent.
They'll likely come right out and say it in due time. More tomorrow.***
* Petition for Supervisory Writ, April 7 (.pdf; 37 pgs.).
Shorter Huebsch: We're suing everyone and everything, everywhere.
** Sorry for the mixed metaphor. Poetry is not my main bag.
*** -ish.
April 9, 2011
Why not a Wis. S. Ct. recount anyway?
No skin off the petitioner:
"We're broke." — Scott Walker, seriatim
"Access is like Jesus – it saves." — Fergus
* And, a handful (six) of counties' results are still unofficial.
eta 01: Make that three counties whose results are still unofficial: Milwaukee, Outagamie, and Sauk. No change to the above percentages in the meantime, however. h/t WisPolitics Election Blog.
eta 02: Outagamie Inagamie, MKE and Sauk to go.
eta 03: WisPolitics sez its Sauk figures are official, they're just not posted to Sauk Co. or Government Accountability Board websites yet.
If the difference between the votes cast for the leading candidate and those cast for the petitioner is not more than 0.5% of the total votes cast for the office, the petitioner is not required to pay a fee. — Wis. Stat. § 9.01(1)(ag)1.I may have a bad number in there somewheres,* but my SS says D. Prosser, 50.24%, J. Kloppenburg 49.76%. Strict construction for ya.
"We're broke." — Scott Walker, seriatim
"Access is like Jesus – it saves." — Fergus
* And, a handful (six) of counties' results are still unofficial.
eta 01: Make that three counties whose results are still unofficial: Milwaukee, Outagamie, and Sauk. No change to the above percentages in the meantime, however. h/t WisPolitics Election Blog.
eta 02: Outagamie Inagamie, MKE and Sauk to go.
eta 03: WisPolitics sez its Sauk figures are official, they're just not posted to Sauk Co. or Government Accountability Board websites yet.
Got to admit, it's a fair cop
Department of Heavy Lifting
Edited to add:
Was O. Ricardo Pimentel yelling "recount"Nope.
when he thought Klop won by 230 votes?
[C]ertain folks were quick to fall back on their bugaboo of voter fraud ...It's okay, you're allowed to say Charlie Sykes and John Fund.
Edited to add:
It is way beyond time for your resignation, O. Ricardo Pimentel. The number of factually incorrect statements in your writing over just the past month would make any moral being resign. . . . To insinuate that anything wrong occurred here other than a mistake in tabulation of the unofficial numbers given to the Associated Press rises to the standard of libel even for a public figure. Libel of anyone should be grounds for your firing if your resignation is not forthcoming.Yee-ouch.
Wisconsin judicial activism now
The ballots remain in the custody of [Kathy] Nickolaus ...That state of affairs needs to be remedied immediately.
I understand it's a formality but the appearance is troubling. I submit that everybody would sleep a whole lot better at night knowing those ballots were instead in the custody of some independent tribunal.
April 8, 2011
WMC Motors unveils 2012 Shark coupé
It goes from desperate* to triumphalist in under seven seconds.
* By comparison the prof's cockamamie "Kloppenburg has a Caperton problem" theory makes my own "Obscenity is necessarily protected political speech because it's prosecuted by elected district attorneys" theory look like the fashionings of freakin' Learned Hand over here.
* By comparison the prof's cockamamie "Kloppenburg has a Caperton problem" theory makes my own "Obscenity is necessarily protected political speech because it's prosecuted by elected district attorneys" theory look like the fashionings of freakin' Learned Hand over here.
Famous last words and a bipartisan laughing stock
"Waukesha County could not save Prosser."That would be yours truly, tapping away one recent Wednesday morning. How morbidly wrong your scribe now appears to be.
I was correct at the time, however, around the previous midnight hour when overwhelmingly Republican Waukesha County finally reported 100% [sic] of its election returns (WaukCo. had been sitting on the AP's results page at 25% for a couple of nailbiting hours).
Armed with an MS Excel file of February's primary results* and comparing in realtime how Assistant Attorney General JoAnne Kloppenburg was improving her general election score dramatically in county after Wisconsin county (every one of which — contra Scott Walker's ludicrous averments, made now even more so in the wake of a rogue election official's enormous bungle — was not Dane County) it was rapidly becoming apparent that the election would hinge on the ferocity of Kloppenburg's clobbering in Waukesha Co. (for the per se clobbering was never in doubt). Sure enough as Tuesday evening turned to Wednesday morning it had grown clear enough that Prosser's Wauk-klopbering was not severe enough to carry the State.
Forfeit a couple Hun
Kloppenburg had previously accomplished her initially required milestone event, reversing Milwaukee County from 54-46 Prosser to roughly 55-45 K-Burg, the 100% [sic] returns from Waukesha County only put Prosser ahead by a couple of hundred votes and based on what was left and Kloppenburg's rising fortunes throughout the rest of the State's most populous counties,** Election Central here reckoned Justice Prosser would quickly forfeit those couple hun, and remain behind the point of no returns, and start packing his bags for July 31.
Which is pretty much exactly what happened until Kathy Nickolaus, a WaukCo. Republican Party True Believer with an apparently lengthy and documented history of extraordinary incompetence, suddenly "discovered" circa 14K ballots from Brookfield yesterday afternoon.
Now it's gotten so bad somebody's had to retain Ben Ginsberg, Esq., of Washington, DC (favorite place in the whole wide world of the "Tea Party" crowd, courted early and often by Justice Prosser, who today happens to be the somebody that's retained Mr. Ginsberg).
Separation of utterances
You may remember one Brian Nemoir, Justice David Prosser's campaign manager, who uttered the now-infamous December 8, 2010 statement of compliance pledging Prosser's fealty to the recently-elected GOP legislative and executive branches of government.
In my view Prosser should have loudly and forcefully jettisoned Nemoir on December 9, 2010, perhaps by figuratively having him rolled over by one of Scott Walker's old federal stimulus-funded, Canadian-made Milwaukee County Transit System motorcoaches.
Instead, Prosser distanced himself over time from the pledge to varying degrees, for the longest while saying little more than, 'Those aren't the words I would have used,' which struck me as particularly unsatisfying because if there's anybody who knows how many different ways there are to say the exact same thing, it's a lawyer.
The Prosser campaign's December pledge of fealty to the Fitz Van Walker regime remained firmly affixed to the candidate's hide right up until two days before the election, when Journal Communications, Inc. ran it all by us one more time in the course of its incoherent endorsement of the politically conservative Supreme Court justice.
Waukesha ha ha
"Waukesha County" is a punchline among liberals — its mere mention invokes the equivalent velocity of eye-rolling as, for example, does "Charlie Sykes" — and even candidate Kloppenburg made a Waukesha County crack at an appearance in Shorewood (an administrative suburb of Milwaukee but in fact an integral part of Milwaukee).
Funny thing is, it's even a punchline among conservative Republicans.
During one especially candid conversation with a Dane County Republican (that would be yer proverbial hen's tooth) official from a couple of weeks ago (I don't have the link handy; I'll dig it up and post it later) Nemoir's mal-spelled renunciation of the bedrock American constitutional doctrine of separation of powers presented itself.
Quipped Justice Prosser: 'Well I guess there's just a little too much Waukesha County in Brian Nemoir.' Yep, we are knowing the feeling.
* Why the expert wag professors and lawyers insist on comparing Tuesday's results with last November's — or those of the 2008 presidential election, fer the luvva gawd — is beyond your humble correspondent's ken. The political landscape has been altered so substantively by Fitz Van Walker's sundry lawless antics that those prior contests are all but meaningless to the present one. The most directly relevant and of most recent and timely vintage of temperature-taking of the public's attitude toward the Wisconsin Supreme Court general election is, obviously, the Wis. S. Ct. primary election. Or it could be also that the local press has roughly only two of each expert wag professor and lawyer in its desk Rolodex.
More likely the latter, as The Truth is Out Here, and not necessarily anywhere within Journal Communications, Inc. County and environs.
** And a touch of intuition, the poli scientist's ancient Chinese secret.
eta: Jay Bullock debunks once again the Opéra Bouffe that is WPRI.
Bush lawyer Benjamin Ginsberg to the rescue
Bush lawyer but not bush league
'Fundamental philosophical difficulties with Equal Protection.'
Sources said Ginsberg's involvement will be limited to sorting through the morass of conflicts of interest in the Waukesha County bungle.
That alone may generate enough billings to retire on.
'Fundamental philosophical difficulties with Equal Protection.'
Sources said Ginsberg's involvement will be limited to sorting through the morass of conflicts of interest in the Waukesha County bungle.
That alone may generate enough billings to retire on.
Wisconsin admin sec Mike Huebsch, wiseacre
"a permanent temporary restraining order"Very funny.
But perhaps it might better serve the people of Wisconsin if you explained why Dane County Circuit Judge Maryann Sumi is wrong.
Because we've already adequately demonstrated why she is right.
It's straight-up "conservative restraint" statutory construction 101.
April 7, 2011
Waukesha County: Convene the grand jury
Atty. Dick Ginkowski's on a roll today.
Earlier:
Waukesha County Republicans have got some real dandies.
Meet Waukesha County exec chief of staff Ellen Nowak.
Earlier:
Waukesha County Republicans have got some real dandies.
Meet Waukesha County exec chief of staff Ellen Nowak.
Lake Mills, Jefferson County, Wisconsin
Very cool blog post by Dick Ginkowski of Kenosha, WI
Town of Lake Mills
Town of Lake Mills
... a proper notice of at least two hours [was] given.*cough*
Justice Prosser's memory plays a trick on us
Even Reuben Lee Mitchell sat up and took judicial notice
It's breathtaking, literally.
* Which evidently began with April Fools, 2008.
Justice Prosser called the campaign the most difficult assault on a person's character [his] in the history of the judiciary.*I heard Justice Prosser say this early Wednesday morning on the TV. I could not believe my ears then and I cannot believe my eyes now.
It's breathtaking, literally.
* Which evidently began with April Fools, 2008.
Wisconsin's GOP counties love Kloppenburg
Because #wiunion GTFOTV State-wide, is why
Contrary to Governor Scott K. Walker's absurdist claim that 'Wisconsin is divided between Madison and the rest of the State,'* Assistant Attorney General JoAnne Kloppenburg posted some of her biggest advances in Republican strongholds during the Supreme Court election on Tuesday. Walker also denies the election had anything to do with his disastrous legislative projects, which have attracted more civil lawsuits than a Chevrolet Corvair at a McDonald's drive-thru.
Meanwhile others among the more imaginative of the nut-right are attempting to forward the claim that incumbent Supreme Court Justice David Prosser was the victim of poor voter turnout in Republican-dominated counties. (They're also making utterly baseless charges of "voter fraud,"** but the Brawler can handle those.)
Then there's a bizarre item in the lefty Capital Times of all places, the less said about the better. T'aint no big deal, the piece's sources therewith assert, that the Fitz Van Walker administration just handed the Supreme Court to an army of motivated punks, thugs, slobs, and hippies,*** a spectacular political failure for the ages.
Those speluncean zanies
The only explanation I can come up with is that a feature expedition article for Spelunker's Quarterly made its way over to the Capital Times, in which local GOP mandarin Mark Jefferson spun so hard and drilled so far into Earth's crust he ran right into UW professor Howard Schweber down amongst the deepest strata of psychological denial.
It's funny because not too long ago, the local conservative intelligentsia, Journal Communications, Inc. products Charlie Sykes, Patrick McIlheran, and Rick Esenberg, were telling anybody within fearshot that incumbent Justice David Prosser would cake-walk back onto his politically conservative high chair, and so thoroughly convincing was his 55-point majority in the winter primary.
It might be recalled that on February 15, Scott Walker was just getting underway with his various assaults on the Wisconsin constitution and on the duly enacted laws of the State. In fact this space predicted that liberal success in the Supreme Court would be contingent on the degree Walker and his fellow desperadoes were inclined to test the patience of the good people of the Badger State.
Turns out them desperadoes was pretty darned inclined.
The February 15, 2011 primary
Prosser won the February 15 primary against three opponents: Kloppenburg, Assistant State Public Defender Marla Stephens, and Madison attorney Joel Winnig. In terms of political disposition, I don't believe there was anything to choose among the three candidates.
(This space had also recommended JoAnne Kloppenburg as the most politically viable to go against Prosser, as the wing-nut sleaze machine would have made mince meat out of Atty. Stephens, who has devoted her career to enforcing the Bill of Rights, and that is an unpardonable offense to conservatives, as we well learned in 2008.)
Indeed, Atty. Stephens almost immediately threw her wholehearted support behind Atty. Kloppenburg. As far as I know Atty. Winnig retreated to the shadows and endorsed no candidate. Nevertheless, it seems to me sound reasoning to treat the trio's primary vote in the aggregate. And thus did Justice Prosser win the State, 55-45.
And so did Kloppenburg and her energetic supporters have their work set to that gap-closing, and they did indeed succeed in clawing back Prosser's margin. How they did it is as plain as the Arabic numerals.
Gotcher numbers right cheer
Kloppenburg pulled off the biggest flip in Milwaukee Co., which went 54-46 to Prosser in the primary — about the same as his Statewide figures — to 57-43 in favor of Kloppenburg. She couldn't have won the election without turning that margin in particular. But on account of a disappointing turnout in Milwaukee and the slender overall margin of Kloppenburg's victory, she clearly couldn't have won on that accomplishment alone, and that is where the predominantly Republican territories throughout the State came to her rescue.
Since the February primary, Kloppenburg gained in 22 of the State's 24 largest counties, only dropping a couple points in Marathon Co., which went from 51-49 Prosser to 54-46, and Sheboygan Co., where Prosser profited by one, closing out Tuesday with a 63-37 romp.
More impressively, Kloppenburg added eight, five, and nine points respectively amongst the State's three most notorious**** Republican county-enclave-bunkers: Waukesha (3),***** Washington (7), and Ozaukee (14). In addition the AAG picked up six points in Racine Co. (5), ten in Jefferson Co. (18), 11 in Fond Du Lac Co. (16), and a startling 14 points in Winnebago Co. (8), where Kloppenburg choppenburg'd Prosser's margin from 66-34 in February to 52-48.
Kloppenburg Republicans FTW: WMC, AFP, WTF, LOL
Other of the more populous Justice Prosser-won counties where JoAnne Kloppenburg produced significant headway were: Dodge (19), 11 points.; Outagamie (6), 11 points.; Kenosha (12), nine points; Walworth (17), four points; and Wood (22), three points.
That is, all over the State, not just in Madison, and especially in counties otherwise heavily dominated by Republican voters.
So anybody who you catch peddling Republican Governor Scott Walker's terrified apologetica is handing you a phony bill of goods which must be rejected outright. When that guy tweets "Mmm. Burgers" or "O hai Scotty here look a sandwich kthxbai," the implied relaxation is a façade, 'cause there's a hellhound on your trail.
* "The 'backlash' is largely a Dane County phenomenon," rejoins Marquette professor of law and local right-wing media celebrity Rick Esenberg — who apparently never wearies of being almost irretrievably incorrect — and claims, without a scintilla of evidence, that "the Kloppenburg margin is driven almost entirely by votes in a county [Dane] that had become an ideological fever swamp ... "
Sidesplitting stuff, and just so, so wrong. And the guy has been on the radio and the teevee and the op-ed pages and the internets trafficking this and related nonsense nearly continuously lately.
It shocks the conscience, truly.
** Issuing from — who else — the medium wave jackanapes C. Sykes in tandem with the ludicrous Wall Street Journal pundit J. Fund.
*** Those aren't my epithets, those are actual conservative Republican epithets, perhaps most famously "slobs," which was coined by Assistant Majority Senate Leader Glenn Grothman, the Louie Gohmert of Wisconsin politics. However the author uses them here (just in case it wasn't obvious) as terms of endearment.
**** The three were the only three counties not swept by Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson in the last State Supreme Court election of April, 2009, and proving once and for all, as the wing-nut never tires of not telling you, that Wisconsin absolutely will not abide a liberal judge.
***** The figures in parentheses represent the rank, by all 72 Wisconsin counties, in number of total votes cast on Tues., April 5.
Contrary to Governor Scott K. Walker's absurdist claim that 'Wisconsin is divided between Madison and the rest of the State,'* Assistant Attorney General JoAnne Kloppenburg posted some of her biggest advances in Republican strongholds during the Supreme Court election on Tuesday. Walker also denies the election had anything to do with his disastrous legislative projects, which have attracted more civil lawsuits than a Chevrolet Corvair at a McDonald's drive-thru.
Meanwhile others among the more imaginative of the nut-right are attempting to forward the claim that incumbent Supreme Court Justice David Prosser was the victim of poor voter turnout in Republican-dominated counties. (They're also making utterly baseless charges of "voter fraud,"** but the Brawler can handle those.)
Then there's a bizarre item in the lefty Capital Times of all places, the less said about the better. T'aint no big deal, the piece's sources therewith assert, that the Fitz Van Walker administration just handed the Supreme Court to an army of motivated punks, thugs, slobs, and hippies,*** a spectacular political failure for the ages.
Those speluncean zanies
The only explanation I can come up with is that a feature expedition article for Spelunker's Quarterly made its way over to the Capital Times, in which local GOP mandarin Mark Jefferson spun so hard and drilled so far into Earth's crust he ran right into UW professor Howard Schweber down amongst the deepest strata of psychological denial.
It's funny because not too long ago, the local conservative intelligentsia, Journal Communications, Inc. products Charlie Sykes, Patrick McIlheran, and Rick Esenberg, were telling anybody within fearshot that incumbent Justice David Prosser would cake-walk back onto his politically conservative high chair, and so thoroughly convincing was his 55-point majority in the winter primary.
It might be recalled that on February 15, Scott Walker was just getting underway with his various assaults on the Wisconsin constitution and on the duly enacted laws of the State. In fact this space predicted that liberal success in the Supreme Court would be contingent on the degree Walker and his fellow desperadoes were inclined to test the patience of the good people of the Badger State.
Turns out them desperadoes was pretty darned inclined.
[Search this blog: CAPITOL KAOS]
The February 15, 2011 primary
Prosser won the February 15 primary against three opponents: Kloppenburg, Assistant State Public Defender Marla Stephens, and Madison attorney Joel Winnig. In terms of political disposition, I don't believe there was anything to choose among the three candidates.
(This space had also recommended JoAnne Kloppenburg as the most politically viable to go against Prosser, as the wing-nut sleaze machine would have made mince meat out of Atty. Stephens, who has devoted her career to enforcing the Bill of Rights, and that is an unpardonable offense to conservatives, as we well learned in 2008.)
Indeed, Atty. Stephens almost immediately threw her wholehearted support behind Atty. Kloppenburg. As far as I know Atty. Winnig retreated to the shadows and endorsed no candidate. Nevertheless, it seems to me sound reasoning to treat the trio's primary vote in the aggregate. And thus did Justice Prosser win the State, 55-45.
And so did Kloppenburg and her energetic supporters have their work set to that gap-closing, and they did indeed succeed in clawing back Prosser's margin. How they did it is as plain as the Arabic numerals.
Gotcher numbers right cheer
Kloppenburg pulled off the biggest flip in Milwaukee Co., which went 54-46 to Prosser in the primary — about the same as his Statewide figures — to 57-43 in favor of Kloppenburg. She couldn't have won the election without turning that margin in particular. But on account of a disappointing turnout in Milwaukee and the slender overall margin of Kloppenburg's victory, she clearly couldn't have won on that accomplishment alone, and that is where the predominantly Republican territories throughout the State came to her rescue.
Since the February primary, Kloppenburg gained in 22 of the State's 24 largest counties, only dropping a couple points in Marathon Co., which went from 51-49 Prosser to 54-46, and Sheboygan Co., where Prosser profited by one, closing out Tuesday with a 63-37 romp.
More impressively, Kloppenburg added eight, five, and nine points respectively amongst the State's three most notorious**** Republican county-enclave-bunkers: Waukesha (3),***** Washington (7), and Ozaukee (14). In addition the AAG picked up six points in Racine Co. (5), ten in Jefferson Co. (18), 11 in Fond Du Lac Co. (16), and a startling 14 points in Winnebago Co. (8), where Kloppenburg choppenburg'd Prosser's margin from 66-34 in February to 52-48.
Kloppenburg Republicans FTW: WMC, AFP, WTF, LOL
Other of the more populous Justice Prosser-won counties where JoAnne Kloppenburg produced significant headway were: Dodge (19), 11 points.; Outagamie (6), 11 points.; Kenosha (12), nine points; Walworth (17), four points; and Wood (22), three points.
That is, all over the State, not just in Madison, and especially in counties otherwise heavily dominated by Republican voters.
So anybody who you catch peddling Republican Governor Scott Walker's terrified apologetica is handing you a phony bill of goods which must be rejected outright. When that guy tweets "Mmm. Burgers" or "O hai Scotty here look a sandwich kthxbai," the implied relaxation is a façade, 'cause there's a hellhound on your trail.
* "The 'backlash' is largely a Dane County phenomenon," rejoins Marquette professor of law and local right-wing media celebrity Rick Esenberg — who apparently never wearies of being almost irretrievably incorrect — and claims, without a scintilla of evidence, that "the Kloppenburg margin is driven almost entirely by votes in a county [Dane] that had become an ideological fever swamp ... "
Sidesplitting stuff, and just so, so wrong. And the guy has been on the radio and the teevee and the op-ed pages and the internets trafficking this and related nonsense nearly continuously lately.
It shocks the conscience, truly.
** Issuing from — who else — the medium wave jackanapes C. Sykes in tandem with the ludicrous Wall Street Journal pundit J. Fund.
*** Those aren't my epithets, those are actual conservative Republican epithets, perhaps most famously "slobs," which was coined by Assistant Majority Senate Leader Glenn Grothman, the Louie Gohmert of Wisconsin politics. However the author uses them here (just in case it wasn't obvious) as terms of endearment.
**** The three were the only three counties not swept by Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson in the last State Supreme Court election of April, 2009, and proving once and for all, as the wing-nut never tires of not telling you, that Wisconsin absolutely will not abide a liberal judge.
***** The figures in parentheses represent the rank, by all 72 Wisconsin counties, in number of total votes cast on Tues., April 5.
April 6, 2011
Wisconsin SC projection still looking good
Update: Ashland County swings 'er to K-Burg
Notably, Ashland County is the former criminal-prosecuting stomping grounds of Gableman, J., and then of Sean "Starving on 170K" Duffy.
eta 1205 CST: Prosser cannot win the one remaining JeffCo precinct by enough to overcome KloJo's current lead. You heard it here first.
Note: JDP dropped nine points in JeffCo between 02/15 and 04/05.
_____________________________________________
Just call me Nate Silver, Jr.
According to the Associated Press, the Wisconsin Supreme Court votes not yet included in the tally are from the following counties:
Ashland 36-64 [eta 1030 CST 100%: 70-30 KloJo]
Crawford 42-58 [eta 1030 CST 100%: 59-41 KloJo]
Dane 31-69 [eta 1030 CST 100%: 73-27 KloJo]
Dunn 45-55 [eta 1030 CST 100%: 56-44 KloJo]
Jefferson 67-33 [eta 1030 CST: One precinct to go]
Juneau 59-41 [eta 1030 CST 100% 52-48 KloJo]
Milwaukee 54-46* [eta 1130 CST: 100% 57-43 KloJo]
Sauk 46-54 [eta 1030 CST 100%: 56-44 KloJo]
Taylor 56-44 [eta 1030 CST 100% 61-39 JDP)
All but Jefferson, Juneau, and Taylor counties — and the latter two are relatively small — are Kloppenburg country. Figures denote Prosser-Liberals from the February 15 primary. Note the asterisk beside MKE: As predicted by this here blog, KloJo would only win the Supreme Court if she could draw down Milwaukee County, which she lost in the primary by the same margin Prosser won the State.**
And indeed, Milwaukee County was the key for Atty. Kloppenburg, as she and her supporters turned it 57-43 to her favor during the general election campaign, with two of 486 precincts yet to count.
IOW I wasn't just guessing. Waukesha County could not save Prosser.
Turnout could have been better in MKE County, however, relative to the State. So a few more of you punks, thugs, and hippies*** out there yesterday and this sucker would have been in the books by now.
** And yes obviously I'm giving all of the three liberal candidates' primary vote to Kloppenburg. Some right-wing commentators (and elite DC pundit Dave Weigel, who should know better) reported the primary results as 55-25, Prosser-Kloppenburg, which is silly and pointless. All three of Prosser's challengers could rightfully be counted as one liberal bloc, as ideologically indistinguishable as they were.
*** Slobs also - sorry!
Notably, Ashland County is the former criminal-prosecuting stomping grounds of Gableman, J., and then of Sean "Starving on 170K" Duffy.
eta 1205 CST: Prosser cannot win the one remaining JeffCo precinct by enough to overcome KloJo's current lead. You heard it here first.
Note: JDP dropped nine points in JeffCo between 02/15 and 04/05.
_____________________________________________
Just call me Nate Silver, Jr.
According to the Associated Press, the Wisconsin Supreme Court votes not yet included in the tally are from the following counties:
Ashland 36-64 [eta 1030 CST 100%: 70-30 KloJo]
Crawford 42-58 [eta 1030 CST 100%: 59-41 KloJo]
Dane 31-69 [eta 1030 CST 100%: 73-27 KloJo]
Dunn 45-55 [eta 1030 CST 100%: 56-44 KloJo]
Jefferson 67-33 [eta 1030 CST: One precinct to go]
Juneau 59-41 [eta 1030 CST 100% 52-48 KloJo]
Milwaukee 54-46* [eta 1130 CST: 100% 57-43 KloJo]
Sauk 46-54 [eta 1030 CST 100%: 56-44 KloJo]
Taylor 56-44 [eta 1030 CST 100% 61-39 JDP)
All but Jefferson, Juneau, and Taylor counties — and the latter two are relatively small — are Kloppenburg country. Figures denote Prosser-Liberals from the February 15 primary. Note the asterisk beside MKE: As predicted by this here blog, KloJo would only win the Supreme Court if she could draw down Milwaukee County, which she lost in the primary by the same margin Prosser won the State.**
And indeed, Milwaukee County was the key for Atty. Kloppenburg, as she and her supporters turned it 57-43 to her favor during the general election campaign, with two of 486 precincts yet to count.
IOW I wasn't just guessing. Waukesha County could not save Prosser.
Turnout could have been better in MKE County, however, relative to the State. So a few more of you punks, thugs, and hippies*** out there yesterday and this sucker would have been in the books by now.
** And yes obviously I'm giving all of the three liberal candidates' primary vote to Kloppenburg. Some right-wing commentators (and elite DC pundit Dave Weigel, who should know better) reported the primary results as 55-25, Prosser-Kloppenburg, which is silly and pointless. All three of Prosser's challengers could rightfully be counted as one liberal bloc, as ideologically indistinguishable as they were.
*** Slobs also - sorry!
Punks, thugs, hippies beat WMC at own game
This was around midnight.
So don't you dare tell me Reuters or anybody called it before I did.
eta: By the way, just for fun, a comically desperate Charlie Sykes:
Which is right where it stayed tonight. It's how we forecast.
+ psst, Charlie, the CJ romped to 61% in Eau Claire County in 2009.
(I thought Sykes was supposed to be some kind of political genius?)
Aaand he's keepin' it classy too.
Charlie Sykes: Another fine product of Journal Communications, Inc.
So don't you dare tell me Reuters or anybody called it before I did.
eta: By the way, just for fun, a comically desperate Charlie Sykes:
Waiting on Eau Claire County ... Mostly rural areas where Gableman got 60+Maybe in 2008 but somebody forgot to tell poor Charlie Eau Claire County went nearly 60% for the liberal candidates in February, 2011.
Which is right where it stayed tonight. It's how we forecast.
+ psst, Charlie, the CJ romped to 61% in Eau Claire County in 2009.
(I thought Sykes was supposed to be some kind of political genius?)
Aaand he's keepin' it classy too.
Charlie Sykes: Another fine product of Journal Communications, Inc.
April 5, 2011
Mike Plaisted for Wisconsin Supreme Court
If you've been following this little corner of the internets for awhile, you know it gets geared up — almost to the point of obsession — during State Supreme Court elections. Not this time around. But I've been paying close attention, albeit with less interest than horror.
I don't think it's the wisest idea among alternatives to subject positions on the court to popular elections, and this one is proving why, because among those alternatives is merit selection, and the related events unfolding are turning merit selection on its head.
While Assistant Attorney General JoAnne Kloppenburg is certainly qualified to the position well beyond the de minimis requirements, if you strip away all the horse hockey that's been played out by all manner of individual and groupthink third-party entities on both sides of the partisan divide — and by the candidates themselves, occasionally — and evaluate the two hopefuls on those merits which are most relevant to consider, then Justice Prosser wins hands-down.
The reason I say this is because I have heard barely a statement from Atty. Kloppenburg about any decisions of a court or any legal doctrine or any judicial philosophy whatsoever, apart from the ad nauseam boilerplate, "I promise to be fair." Perhaps she is a scholar, but she's produced no indication of scholarship and she's been presented with innumerable opportunities and declined — putting it politely — to do so at each. One can't simply move ahead and assume scholarship.
It's nothing personal — as I say, I would expect her to perform admirably — and I don't blame her for playing it safe by not getting into the various meats and the sundry three-pronged potatoes, if that is what she's doing, but I'm just not hearing from a Supreme Court candidate what I should expect to hear, which is, something more than a superficial familiarity with the core businesses of the court: absorbing, expounding, and developing legal doctrine.
And when I heard from the candidate, as we did during the jockeying for position leading to the February primary that Atty. Kloppenburg sought to make an issue of the Mike Gableman imbroglio but then admitted she hadn't even reviewed all the briefs in Gableman's ethics case (and there aren't all that many of them) I became suspicious, and unfortunately that suspicion has never been sufficiently allayed.
So to begin with, there's that.
Next, there is this: The currently popular portrayal of Justice Prosser as some kind of unhinged misogynist nutcase is patently ridiculous.
I have met him and I have spoken with him, and you couldn't ask to meet or speak with a kinder and more considerate fellow. I have also heard him speak in a professional — as opposed to electioneering — context, reviewing the cases from the court's previous terms.
The guy clearly knows his stuff and has given a lot of thought to that stuff over the course of a lot of years. Whether your humble correspondent agrees with his methods or his results is of no moment to any evaluation of Justice Prosser's knowledge and legal acumen. He's unquestionably got the judge-chops. (That's understatement.)
I love me some Scot Ross and OWN, but if all you can find to prove up the proposition that the incumbent is the temperamental equivalent of Genghis Khan are clips of the justice getting totally justifiably angry with Mike McCabe when the latter strode into the justice's courtroom fresh from lying recklessly about the justice in some blog-opinion pieces, then you can't have much of a case.
If I was Justice Prosser, that video would have been of me chasing Mike McCabe around the gallery with a Super Soaker or having one of those theatrical 10-ton weights lowered quickly onto his head as he stood at the lectern. So, more power to Prosser on that account.
It's been revealed that Justice Prosser evinced a malicious disrespect for the Chief Justice, and for her office. In no way am I defending that — it's indefensible — but that there court has some serious issues and Justice Prosser at least once lost his sh*t as many of us all-too-human beings do on occasion. For anyone's edification, those serious issues are adequately preserved in the public record.
All of the court's open administrative hearings are archived at WisconsinEye, and there are many moments of viciousness, just less overt than Prosser's total biotch-explosion. (Easily the most resentfully sarcastic and disrespectful toward the Chief Justice is Mike Gableman.) So it's hardly surprising Justice Prosser blew his stack; what's unacceptable is the manner in which he blew it.
However the presentation of Justice Prosser as a "moderate" and a swing vote on the court is almost equally misleading. There are a couple of ways to approach a court's term of cases: one as a scholar of the law, and one as a political scientist. Ideally, you approach the court's body of work as both. Simply compiling cases according to percentages of who sided with whom can be wildly inaccurate. We saw a good example of this in the hopelessly unconvincing Journal Communications, Inc.* endorsement of Prosser over the weekend.
Those cited percentages lend little credence to the ends to which they were put by Journal Communications, Inc. (although they're well understood by their compiler, David Ziemer, who incidentally is one of the sharper legal writers around, despite having the U.S. Reports citation to Lochner v. New York tattooed on his right bicep**).
For one thing the percentages don't embody a sufficient recounting because some of those majorities are unanimous. You have to look first to the split decisions, then more closely at which justices are concurring and dissenting with each other, and on what grounds, and then especially closely to the results and the reasoning that obtained those results in each individual case to determine the particular questions under consideration and the connexion between the reasoning and the results. And then you make your evaluation of the data based on the legal and poli sci principles you've studied.
Having performed those moves to a not inconsiderable extent over the years, I think it's fair to say that Justice Prosser is a pretty conservative judge, but in the political sense. That is, his results are often politically conservative but his methods are not judicially conservative. That's where I get a little suspicious, and I say this as a fan of Clarence Thomas who, for whatever else you can say about the man — and there is plenty — is consistent in his methods.***
Justice Prosser, for example, has joined an opinion of Gableman's purported to find within the First Amendment's Free Exercise of Religion Clause the right to fire employees in blatant violation of age discrimination law, and in contravention of court orders from magistrates right up to and including the court of appeals, without once explaining — de novo, as a true judicial conservative should and would have — how on whatever specified god's green earth firing employees is a free exercise of religion in the first instance.
That's not judicial conservatism, but that is political conservatism.
A conservative begins with the Constitution, she doesn't set off on some meandering and merely persuasive detour throughout the circuit courts of Delaware and New Mexico and then wind up back somewhere near the Constitution because Judge So-and-so with jurisdiction over Jefferson Parish, LA apparently held as such.
More recently Justice Prosser, again in full concert with Gableman, literally rewrote the Wisconsin constitution in order to enjoin a party to a case even before the Supreme Court had decided to take jurisdiction of that same case. And they didn't present a compelling reason to do so; they couldn't have, simply for the fact there are compelling reasons why the constitution does not mean what they had to insert an entirely new phrase into it to make it mean. That's not judicial conservatism, but that is political conservatism.
Justice Prosser, before Gableman's time but together with Justice Roggensack and with Justice Ziegler's ideological predecessor Justice Wilcox, endorsed a ludicrously unconstitutional amendment to the State's criminal procedural framework that handed over to the executive branch of State government an impermissibly unilateral control over a defendant's life, liberty, and property. That's not judicial conservatism, that's political conservatism.
And Justice Prosser produced from disturbing the thin air by waving a whole cloth at it an exception to Wisconsin's concealed carry law that the text of the statutes in nowise authorized or even implied. That's not judicial conservatism but it is political conservatism.
Then there's the recusal controversies, where Justice Prosser, once again together with the present hard-right bloc, adopted verbatim rules drafted by Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce and the Wisconsin Realtors Association, two archetypal business lobbies. Now as an appearance of impropriety, the circumstances are troubling. However, just because the rules were drafted by corporate concerns doesn't make them bad rules. To so conclude is fallacious.
But the legitimate and legitimately remarkable trouble with the rules for judicial recusal is that they were submitted and adopted verbatim and then the drafters — not the adopting justices — noticed that the rules caused an "absurd" — to coin a legal term of art — result within the framework of the code of judicial ethics. So only by their own detection of the discrepancy and by their own volition, the drafters had to resubmit the rules for (once again, verbatim) re-adoption by the four conservative justices.
Awkward! Alright. I could go on, but I already have.
Thus is my view of Justice Prosser that he is less a judicial conservative than a political conservative, and I'm not saying there is anything inherently wrong with that. It's a legitimate position. But just be aware of it. Of course this is merely my opinion, but I like to think that, as a reasonably diligent student of the law and of the court, I bring at least a little bit of credibility to support it.
You may disagree, and that's cool too.
In conclusion, however, the popular consensus in this Great State of Wisconsin appears to indicate the favoring of Supreme Court elections. So I accept that and incorporate it into my reasoning. Although personally I'd rather not do that, the supporters of judicial elections — including Justice Prosser himself — force me to.
And it is in that political spirit that I completely and wholeheartedly support without reservation the efforts of the left to shift the political balance on the court, if only for one very simple reason: What Justice Gableman, WMC, and their other fellow deceitful travelers did to the popular reputation of former Justice Louis Butler throughout 2007-08 was repulsive, and almost unspeakably vile.
I have never met, nor heard from, any lawyer or judge who does not hold Louis Butler in the highest professional and personal regard and if you think Justice Prosser is getting unfairly portrayed this time around, that is nothing compared to the disgraceful calumnies, both overt and subtle, that the political right heaped on Justice Butler.
And the worst of the perpetrators was none other than our Michael Gableman, who violated the aforementioned code of judicial ethics and then himself and by his counsel fought arrogantly in defense of the indefensible, taking no prisoners along the way.
So to the extent that electing JoAnne Kloppenburg negates whatever power Gableman wields on the court — and there's no question that her election would effectively mitigate his influence to a considerable degree — I say, go for it, all you young punks and all you union thugs and all you dirty co-op hippies. You have my seal of approval.
More importantly, while you can argue 'til you're red-State-in-the-face that it's inappropriate to topple Justice Prosser because Scott Walker and Scott Fitzgerald and J.B. Van Hollen are erratic and reckless custodians of the body politic and I would probably agree that it is inappropriate, I'm helpless because the present politicization of the court is directly the outcome of those who support judicial elections.
Which is to say, in other words: Hey, I'd really like to come to your assistance, but you won't let me. And which is why I today endorse my bestest buddy Mike Plaisted**** for the Wisconsin Supreme Court.
Selah.
* Style note: This blog will hereafter attribute opinion pieces in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel to the corporate entity, Journal Communications, Inc. Straight news reporting — such as it exists anywhere — will continue to be citated to the Journal-Sentinel.
** Mercifully I have no personal knowledge of this statistic; Counselor Ziemer admitted to it on the internets.
*** The recent kerfuffles regarding Mrs. Virginia Thomas are at once amusingly abhorrent and abhorrently amusing, but there's no substance there. Nothing would cause Justice Thomas to vary from his inexorably reductionist pursuits. If anybody out there is seriously expecting Clarence Thomas to stand aside from some Tea interested-Party case, then you are high, as the kids say.
**** Also, because: "He is a good writer." (Very good, in fact.)
I don't think it's the wisest idea among alternatives to subject positions on the court to popular elections, and this one is proving why, because among those alternatives is merit selection, and the related events unfolding are turning merit selection on its head.
Groupthink
While Assistant Attorney General JoAnne Kloppenburg is certainly qualified to the position well beyond the de minimis requirements, if you strip away all the horse hockey that's been played out by all manner of individual and groupthink third-party entities on both sides of the partisan divide — and by the candidates themselves, occasionally — and evaluate the two hopefuls on those merits which are most relevant to consider, then Justice Prosser wins hands-down.
The reason I say this is because I have heard barely a statement from Atty. Kloppenburg about any decisions of a court or any legal doctrine or any judicial philosophy whatsoever, apart from the ad nauseam boilerplate, "I promise to be fair." Perhaps she is a scholar, but she's produced no indication of scholarship and she's been presented with innumerable opportunities and declined — putting it politely — to do so at each. One can't simply move ahead and assume scholarship.
It's nothing personal — as I say, I would expect her to perform admirably — and I don't blame her for playing it safe by not getting into the various meats and the sundry three-pronged potatoes, if that is what she's doing, but I'm just not hearing from a Supreme Court candidate what I should expect to hear, which is, something more than a superficial familiarity with the core businesses of the court: absorbing, expounding, and developing legal doctrine.
Imbroglio
And when I heard from the candidate, as we did during the jockeying for position leading to the February primary that Atty. Kloppenburg sought to make an issue of the Mike Gableman imbroglio but then admitted she hadn't even reviewed all the briefs in Gableman's ethics case (and there aren't all that many of them) I became suspicious, and unfortunately that suspicion has never been sufficiently allayed.
So to begin with, there's that.
Next, there is this: The currently popular portrayal of Justice Prosser as some kind of unhinged misogynist nutcase is patently ridiculous.
I have met him and I have spoken with him, and you couldn't ask to meet or speak with a kinder and more considerate fellow. I have also heard him speak in a professional — as opposed to electioneering — context, reviewing the cases from the court's previous terms.
The guy clearly knows his stuff and has given a lot of thought to that stuff over the course of a lot of years. Whether your humble correspondent agrees with his methods or his results is of no moment to any evaluation of Justice Prosser's knowledge and legal acumen. He's unquestionably got the judge-chops. (That's understatement.)
Super Soaker
I love me some Scot Ross and OWN, but if all you can find to prove up the proposition that the incumbent is the temperamental equivalent of Genghis Khan are clips of the justice getting totally justifiably angry with Mike McCabe when the latter strode into the justice's courtroom fresh from lying recklessly about the justice in some blog-opinion pieces, then you can't have much of a case.
If I was Justice Prosser, that video would have been of me chasing Mike McCabe around the gallery with a Super Soaker or having one of those theatrical 10-ton weights lowered quickly onto his head as he stood at the lectern. So, more power to Prosser on that account.
It's been revealed that Justice Prosser evinced a malicious disrespect for the Chief Justice, and for her office. In no way am I defending that — it's indefensible — but that there court has some serious issues and Justice Prosser at least once lost his sh*t as many of us all-too-human beings do on occasion. For anyone's edification, those serious issues are adequately preserved in the public record.
A total biotch-explosion
All of the court's open administrative hearings are archived at WisconsinEye, and there are many moments of viciousness, just less overt than Prosser's total biotch-explosion. (Easily the most resentfully sarcastic and disrespectful toward the Chief Justice is Mike Gableman.) So it's hardly surprising Justice Prosser blew his stack; what's unacceptable is the manner in which he blew it.
However the presentation of Justice Prosser as a "moderate" and a swing vote on the court is almost equally misleading. There are a couple of ways to approach a court's term of cases: one as a scholar of the law, and one as a political scientist. Ideally, you approach the court's body of work as both. Simply compiling cases according to percentages of who sided with whom can be wildly inaccurate. We saw a good example of this in the hopelessly unconvincing Journal Communications, Inc.* endorsement of Prosser over the weekend.
Those cited percentages lend little credence to the ends to which they were put by Journal Communications, Inc. (although they're well understood by their compiler, David Ziemer, who incidentally is one of the sharper legal writers around, despite having the U.S. Reports citation to Lochner v. New York tattooed on his right bicep**).
Connexionz
For one thing the percentages don't embody a sufficient recounting because some of those majorities are unanimous. You have to look first to the split decisions, then more closely at which justices are concurring and dissenting with each other, and on what grounds, and then especially closely to the results and the reasoning that obtained those results in each individual case to determine the particular questions under consideration and the connexion between the reasoning and the results. And then you make your evaluation of the data based on the legal and poli sci principles you've studied.
Having performed those moves to a not inconsiderable extent over the years, I think it's fair to say that Justice Prosser is a pretty conservative judge, but in the political sense. That is, his results are often politically conservative but his methods are not judicially conservative. That's where I get a little suspicious, and I say this as a fan of Clarence Thomas who, for whatever else you can say about the man — and there is plenty — is consistent in his methods.***
Justice Prosser, for example, has joined an opinion of Gableman's purported to find within the First Amendment's Free Exercise of Religion Clause the right to fire employees in blatant violation of age discrimination law, and in contravention of court orders from magistrates right up to and including the court of appeals, without once explaining — de novo, as a true judicial conservative should and would have — how on whatever specified god's green earth firing employees is a free exercise of religion in the first instance.
That's not judicial conservatism, but that is political conservatism.
Judge So-and-so
A conservative begins with the Constitution, she doesn't set off on some meandering and merely persuasive detour throughout the circuit courts of Delaware and New Mexico and then wind up back somewhere near the Constitution because Judge So-and-so with jurisdiction over Jefferson Parish, LA apparently held as such.
More recently Justice Prosser, again in full concert with Gableman, literally rewrote the Wisconsin constitution in order to enjoin a party to a case even before the Supreme Court had decided to take jurisdiction of that same case. And they didn't present a compelling reason to do so; they couldn't have, simply for the fact there are compelling reasons why the constitution does not mean what they had to insert an entirely new phrase into it to make it mean. That's not judicial conservatism, but that is political conservatism.
Justice Prosser, before Gableman's time but together with Justice Roggensack and with Justice Ziegler's ideological predecessor Justice Wilcox, endorsed a ludicrously unconstitutional amendment to the State's criminal procedural framework that handed over to the executive branch of State government an impermissibly unilateral control over a defendant's life, liberty, and property. That's not judicial conservatism, that's political conservatism.
Deeply disturbance
And Justice Prosser produced from disturbing the thin air by waving a whole cloth at it an exception to Wisconsin's concealed carry law that the text of the statutes in nowise authorized or even implied. That's not judicial conservatism but it is political conservatism.
Then there's the recusal controversies, where Justice Prosser, once again together with the present hard-right bloc, adopted verbatim rules drafted by Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce and the Wisconsin Realtors Association, two archetypal business lobbies. Now as an appearance of impropriety, the circumstances are troubling. However, just because the rules were drafted by corporate concerns doesn't make them bad rules. To so conclude is fallacious.
But the legitimate and legitimately remarkable trouble with the rules for judicial recusal is that they were submitted and adopted verbatim and then the drafters — not the adopting justices — noticed that the rules caused an "absurd" — to coin a legal term of art — result within the framework of the code of judicial ethics. So only by their own detection of the discrepancy and by their own volition, the drafters had to resubmit the rules for (once again, verbatim) re-adoption by the four conservative justices.
Awkward! Alright. I could go on, but I already have.
Thus is my view of Justice Prosser that he is less a judicial conservative than a political conservative, and I'm not saying there is anything inherently wrong with that. It's a legitimate position. But just be aware of it. Of course this is merely my opinion, but I like to think that, as a reasonably diligent student of the law and of the court, I bring at least a little bit of credibility to support it.
You may disagree, and that's cool too.
Forcible
In conclusion, however, the popular consensus in this Great State of Wisconsin appears to indicate the favoring of Supreme Court elections. So I accept that and incorporate it into my reasoning. Although personally I'd rather not do that, the supporters of judicial elections — including Justice Prosser himself — force me to.
And it is in that political spirit that I completely and wholeheartedly support without reservation the efforts of the left to shift the political balance on the court, if only for one very simple reason: What Justice Gableman, WMC, and their other fellow deceitful travelers did to the popular reputation of former Justice Louis Butler throughout 2007-08 was repulsive, and almost unspeakably vile.
I have never met, nor heard from, any lawyer or judge who does not hold Louis Butler in the highest professional and personal regard and if you think Justice Prosser is getting unfairly portrayed this time around, that is nothing compared to the disgraceful calumnies, both overt and subtle, that the political right heaped on Justice Butler.
Punks, thugs, hippies on your marks
And the worst of the perpetrators was none other than our Michael Gableman, who violated the aforementioned code of judicial ethics and then himself and by his counsel fought arrogantly in defense of the indefensible, taking no prisoners along the way.
So to the extent that electing JoAnne Kloppenburg negates whatever power Gableman wields on the court — and there's no question that her election would effectively mitigate his influence to a considerable degree — I say, go for it, all you young punks and all you union thugs and all you dirty co-op hippies. You have my seal of approval.
More importantly, while you can argue 'til you're red-State-in-the-face that it's inappropriate to topple Justice Prosser because Scott Walker and Scott Fitzgerald and J.B. Van Hollen are erratic and reckless custodians of the body politic and I would probably agree that it is inappropriate, I'm helpless because the present politicization of the court is directly the outcome of those who support judicial elections.
Which is to say, in other words: Hey, I'd really like to come to your assistance, but you won't let me. And which is why I today endorse my bestest buddy Mike Plaisted**** for the Wisconsin Supreme Court.
Selah.
* Style note: This blog will hereafter attribute opinion pieces in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel to the corporate entity, Journal Communications, Inc. Straight news reporting — such as it exists anywhere — will continue to be citated to the Journal-Sentinel.
** Mercifully I have no personal knowledge of this statistic; Counselor Ziemer admitted to it on the internets.
*** The recent kerfuffles regarding Mrs. Virginia Thomas are at once amusingly abhorrent and abhorrently amusing, but there's no substance there. Nothing would cause Justice Thomas to vary from his inexorably reductionist pursuits. If anybody out there is seriously expecting Clarence Thomas to stand aside from some Tea interested-Party case, then you are high, as the kids say.
**** Also, because: "He is a good writer." (Very good, in fact.)
April 4, 2011
Walker wants you to feel sorry for his sandwich
As Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker's political disasters accumulate, he's making sandwiches and showing them to you on the Tweeter.
And that is one sad mofo of a sandwich. Consider it felt sorry for.
(Meanwhile Bob Jambois is eating Walker's lunch in court.)
And that is one sad mofo of a sandwich. Consider it felt sorry for.
(Meanwhile Bob Jambois is eating Walker's lunch in court.)
What's that supposed to mean?
I sure hope [Dane County Circuit Court Judge Maryann Sumi] gets what she deserves when all this wraps up.Local conservative blogger pens threatening April Fools post to self
When the standard according to which a temporary restraining order is granted is the likelihood of success on the merits demonstrated by the party requesting the TRO and the party against whom the TRO is requested admits in court they are likely to be unsuccessful on the merits, then a judge is left with little choice than to grant the TRO.
It's not rocket surgery.
The party requesting the TRO didn't even need to show up.
Justice Prosser on savagery and distaste
From the archives:
Distasteful: like a William Rehnquist shirt & tie combo.
At a candidate forum recently, Prosser said people need to "get over" the Gableman debacle. Given that Gableman subsequently through his agent defamed every attorney in the State who ever handled a criminal defense case,* I don't think that's going to happen, ever.
And I fail to understand how Prosser can demand that his opponent, JoAnne Kloppenburg, condemn a third-party's ad attacking him, while his own public reaction to Gableman's unethical behavior has been decidedly lukewarm and defensive. That's a tad double standard-ish.
* And offended all the others who respect the rule of law, including Justice N. Patrick Crooks, who was moved by Gableman's lawyer's relentless calumny to reconsider his position on the recusal motion.
That was among the worst lawyering this observer has ever seen.
The Allen motion ... has been followed by nine additional recusal motions against members of this court [seven of which are "against" Gableman]. The Wisconsin State Public Defender's office has invited the entire defense bar to file recusal motions against [Gableman] in criminal cases. The number and savagery of these motions is unprecedented and amounts to a frontal assault on the court. The court should have denied Allen's motion quickly, without comment. This would have avoided exposing controversy within the court.It's always kind of bugged me that Justice Prosser viewed recusal motions — which are sheafs of paper filed with the court that maybe 50 people in the entire State of Wisconsin read — seeking Gableman's standing aside from certain cases as "savagery," whereas Gableman's notorious 2008 television ad attacking former Justice Louis Butler, which truly was savagery, was merely "distasteful" to Justice Prosser.
Distasteful: like a William Rehnquist shirt & tie combo.
At a candidate forum recently, Prosser said people need to "get over" the Gableman debacle. Given that Gableman subsequently through his agent defamed every attorney in the State who ever handled a criminal defense case,* I don't think that's going to happen, ever.
And I fail to understand how Prosser can demand that his opponent, JoAnne Kloppenburg, condemn a third-party's ad attacking him, while his own public reaction to Gableman's unethical behavior has been decidedly lukewarm and defensive. That's a tad double standard-ish.
* And offended all the others who respect the rule of law, including Justice N. Patrick Crooks, who was moved by Gableman's lawyer's relentless calumny to reconsider his position on the recusal motion.
That was among the worst lawyering this observer has ever seen.
April 3, 2011
Shorter Sunday INCITE!
Charlie Sykes: Kloppenburg is "using" Merryfield against Prosser.*
Jeff Fleming: Prosser called the Chief Justice a bitch.
Charlie Sykes: Don't change the subject.
For a lot of people, that is the subject.
Sunday INCITE! is a Journal Communications, Inc. Joint
Me and the Brew City Brawler oughta have our own radio show.
Now that would kick ass.
* It's not Kloppenburg's ad, it's third-party. And Mr. Merryfield said all the documented stuff in the ad, but recanted as soon as it appeared.
Very strange.
Jeff Fleming: Prosser called the Chief Justice a bitch.
Charlie Sykes: Don't change the subject.
For a lot of people, that is the subject.
Sunday INCITE! is a Journal Communications, Inc. Joint
Me and the Brew City Brawler oughta have our own radio show.
Now that would kick ass.
* It's not Kloppenburg's ad, it's third-party. And Mr. Merryfield said all the documented stuff in the ad, but recanted as soon as it appeared.
Very strange.
Wisconsin: Best story of the weekend
"Carried ... feet first." — famed legal memorandum
No cop in the State would arrest Senate DemsGoldmine of quotes there. Although this one's tough to beat:
— Dee Hall, WI State Journal (Sec. of State's paper of record)
"We are supremely confident that we followed the law perfectly," said Andrew Welhouse, spox for Scott Fitzgerald.As this blog has repeatedly said from day one this entire escapade was frivolous nonsense, and that no in-house attorney would abide Scott Fitzgerald's unconstitutional incarceration fantasies, which is why he was forced to go the outside Republicans-for-hire route.
The ordeal began Feb. 17 ...The hilarity ensued March 2, in Oconto County.*
* Now that lawyer is screaming bloody separation-of-powers murder.
When convenient.
Big Fitz dreads the people of Brown County
A red-faced Fitz attempts clandestine escape in Green Bay
I love the bit about the Kloppenburg sign being a "powerful talisman." How politically inept* do you have to be to lose the Supreme Court?
You know Big Fitz, Capitol KAOS agent.
* And even more entertainingly, legally inept.
I love the bit about the Kloppenburg sign being a "powerful talisman." How politically inept* do you have to be to lose the Supreme Court?
You know Big Fitz, Capitol KAOS agent.
* And even more entertainingly, legally inept.
Lying for Justice Prosser: Guess who
Prosser = Walker, for Walker/Prosser operative
Chris Liebenthal connects the dots:
They say electing justices was a good idea ... in 1848.
By the way none other than Journal Communications, Inc.'s Patrick McIlheran, who won an award from Americans For Prosperity for his faithful pursuit of the Truth, has been pushing this utter rubbish. Evidently journalistic ethics have gone the way of judicial ethics.
* And the links.
Chris Liebenthal connects the dots:
On top of being affiliated with AFP, CSA and Campaign Now, John Connors was also an intern for then Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker and for the gubernatorial candidate Scott Walker, all the while balancing his school career and being a senator at Marquette University.Read the whole thing.* I recall Justice Prosser making rather a large fuss when an adverse third party ran a teevee ad attacking him over sexual assault allegations he prosecuted — or didn't prosecute, as it turns out — when he was the Outagamie County DA in the 70s. In a debate at Marquette University Law School, Prosser made a grand show of demanding his opponent, Assistant Attorney General JoAnne Kloppenburg, condemn the ad. Wonder if he'll condemn this one.
They say electing justices was a good idea ... in 1848.
By the way none other than Journal Communications, Inc.'s Patrick McIlheran, who won an award from Americans For Prosperity for his faithful pursuit of the Truth, has been pushing this utter rubbish. Evidently journalistic ethics have gone the way of judicial ethics.
* And the links.
April 2, 2011
Justice Prosser in majority only 86% of time
It's a meaningful distinction, we are told
So is Justice Roggensack in the majority 86% of the time, Justice Gableman is in the majority 88% of the time, compared with Justice Ziegler, who is only in the majority 91% of the time. Believe it or not, these figures are offered by the mandarins at the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel in support of the proposition that Justice Prosser is really not all that often part of the court's hard-right conservative bloc, which consists of, um, Justices Roggensack, Gableman, and Ziegler.
Ha ha come on Journal Communications, Inc., we're not that naïve.
eta: The thing is going over like a pork chop at a Jewish wedding.
And rightly so.
So is Justice Roggensack in the majority 86% of the time, Justice Gableman is in the majority 88% of the time, compared with Justice Ziegler, who is only in the majority 91% of the time. Believe it or not, these figures are offered by the mandarins at the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel in support of the proposition that Justice Prosser is really not all that often part of the court's hard-right conservative bloc, which consists of, um, Justices Roggensack, Gableman, and Ziegler.
Ha ha come on Journal Communications, Inc., we're not that naïve.
[Kloppenburg] seems likely to join the liberal wing.*spit take* —— You owe me a new monitor, as the kids say.
eta: The thing is going over like a pork chop at a Jewish wedding.
And rightly so.
We are Fair and Balanced
We show all sides here:
However apoplexy is not the word I'd choose. The evidence* presented in Dane County Circuit Court recently demonstrates that the gang of Republicans in charge of the political branches of State government broke the law. If it is apoplexy, it's entirely justified.
* And that would be uncontroverted evidence, as Judge Maryann Sumi had to patiently and graciously explain to the assistant AG yesterday.
The real elephant in the room is that Kloppenburg wouldn't have had a prayer in this race had it not been for the apoplectic fit of the left over public union collective bargaining. The severity of this self-interest seizure has enabled an air-head to go from zero to competitive in a matter of a couple weeks. So spare us the nonsense of her judicial superiority — her recent prominence is achieved strictly by partisan zeal and has nothing to do with her personal accomplishment.He overstates the case by an undeservedly insulting degree but you got to admit, dude's got a point about the apoplexy driving turnout.
However apoplexy is not the word I'd choose. The evidence* presented in Dane County Circuit Court recently demonstrates that the gang of Republicans in charge of the political branches of State government broke the law. If it is apoplexy, it's entirely justified.
* And that would be uncontroverted evidence, as Judge Maryann Sumi had to patiently and graciously explain to the assistant AG yesterday.
Speechless? That'll be the day.
Department of Sweet Home Alabama of the North
Here's some more of the law according to which Fund (who afaik has no credentials in the law) thinks citizens don't have standing to sue:
This is not mere legislative process; this is legislative substance.
Back to the Fun(d):
Besides, conservative groups are pouring even more out for Prosser.
Don't look at me, I've been seriously skeptical of popularly electing Supreme Court justices at least since Wednesday, April 2, 2008. But the AFT is exactly right about swinging the balance, and there are a number of still-lingering offenses that cry out for getting even with.
Dear Mr. John Fund of WSJ editorial page fame, you are here.
Legal analysts [a.k.a. Prof. Rick Esenberg] say [sic] it's preposterous for a judge to enjoin publication of a law before it has even taken effect, as citizens don't have standing to challenge a law until they are subject to it.Earth (or even just Menomonee Falls) to John Fund:
This subchapter shall be enforced in the name and on behalf of the stateWis. Stat. § 19.97(1) got yer standing right here.by the attorney general or, upon the verified complaint of any person, by the district attorney of any county wherein a violation may occur.
Here's some more of the law according to which Fund (who afaik has no credentials in the law) thinks citizens don't have standing to sue:
In recognition of the fact that a representative government of the American type is dependent upon an informed electorate, it is declared to be the policy of this state that the public is entitled to the fullest and most complete information regarding the affairs of government as is compatible with the conduct of governmental business. Wis. Stat. § 19.81(1)None more lofty.
In conformance with article IV, section 10, of the constitution, which states that the doors of each house shall remain open, except when the public welfare requires secrecy, it is declared to be the intent of the legislature to comply to the fullest extent with this subchapter. Wis. Stat. § 19.81(3)Fundamentally right-eous.
This subchapter shall be liberally construed to achieve the purposes set forth in this section ... Wis. Stat. § 19.81(4)I will concede Fund this much: He understands "liberally construed" so well that the very mention makes his ileocecal sphincter pucker.
This is not mere legislative process; this is legislative substance.
Back to the Fun(d):
The case will ultimately be decided by the state Supreme Court. That's why unions and liberal groups are now pouring millions into TV ads to try to oust Justice David Prosser—a member of the court's 4-to-3 conservative majority—in an election next Tuesday.Irrelevant. Prosser's term expires July 31. Does John Fund seriously believe it will take the court until then to dispose of this case (if it even accepts certification)? Heck, it took me about 15 minutes.
Besides, conservative groups are pouring even more out for Prosser.
Liberal groups are doing all they can to politicize this judicial race. An American Federation of Teachers local has sent a letter to its members asserting that "a Kloppenburg victory would swing the balance (on the court) to our side. ... " It is time, the letter says, "to get even."Boo hoo.
Don't look at me, I've been seriously skeptical of popularly electing Supreme Court justices at least since Wednesday, April 2, 2008. But the AFT is exactly right about swinging the balance, and there are a number of still-lingering offenses that cry out for getting even with.
Dear Mr. John Fund of WSJ editorial page fame, you are here.
Emmylou Harris is 64
By God I love Emmylou Harris:
Wrecking Ball
That's Dan Lanois, who produced that incandescent record, on guitar. I saw that band at Massey Hall (magnificent old theater in Toronto). I have seen a lot of shows and that was one of the absolute best.
Wrecking Ball
That's Dan Lanois, who produced that incandescent record, on guitar. I saw that band at Massey Hall (magnificent old theater in Toronto). I have seen a lot of shows and that was one of the absolute best.
April 1, 2011
Fitzgerald unrepentant
A big man has no time really to do anything but just sit and be big.
So that's something.
Among many of the revelations brought to the fore by the Ozanne v. Fitzgerald hearings are those pertaining to Scott Fitzgerald's style of management, which has elsewhere been depicted as inappropriately coercive as well. With employers like that in the business, my own reaction is inclined toward: "Thank God for collective bargaining."*
* Which comprises the very rights and privileges for workers the Brothers Fitzgerald and Gov. Scott Walker, aided by a "room full of lawyers" provided by Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen's office, are attempting to strip from State employees. Is it any bloody wonder.
— F. Scott Fitzgerald (no relation)
Cue Entry of the Gladiators:"We passed the law correctly, legally the first time," Scott Fitzgerald said. "Passing the law correctly and legally a second or third time wouldn't change anything. It certainly wouldn't stop another activist judge and room full of lawyers (from trying) to start this merry-go-round all over again."Well it's marginally a downgrade from "supremely" and "perfectly."
So that's something.
"They could do (the legislation) over," said Dane County District Attorney Ismail Ozanne, plaintiff in the case. "It's been stated on the record that they could do the vote again."By my conservative estimate, Senator Scott Fitzgerald, who is in charge of the Senate (or his brother Rep. Jeff Fitzgerald, who is in charge of the Assembly), could have given seventeen 24-hour notices by now. And more importantly saved a Senate clerk from running — literally, that was today's testimony — back and forth between their offices in order to attempt producing A notice of their "hastily called" March 9 meeting. These guys are so organizized, Jeff Fitzgerald wasn't even in his office to affix his signature to the notice when the crucial moment approached. Rachel Veum, the Senate's Records and Forms Management Specialist, testified today that she had to jog — ran, she also said — around the Capitol in her clogs in search of the two elusive Republican power brothers, while building security personnel pointed and laughed and quipped, "Here she comes again!"
Among many of the revelations brought to the fore by the Ozanne v. Fitzgerald hearings are those pertaining to Scott Fitzgerald's style of management, which has elsewhere been depicted as inappropriately coercive as well. With employers like that in the business, my own reaction is inclined toward: "Thank God for collective bargaining."*
* Which comprises the very rights and privileges for workers the Brothers Fitzgerald and Gov. Scott Walker, aided by a "room full of lawyers" provided by Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen's office, are attempting to strip from State employees. Is it any bloody wonder.
Justice Prosser seals the deal
Obtains coveted Sarah Palin endorsement
If only she could have been prevented, for Justice Prosser's sake.
By the way here's some prior, unfollowed* advice for Justice Prosser. Why Justice Prosser's campaign manager, Brian Nemoir, wasn't forcefully admonished and summarily dismissed remains a complete mystery to me, to this day, nearly four months after the fact. That wing-nut Waukesha County schtick doesn't play Statewide, ya know.
And it just might cost Justice Prosser (and WMC) the bench.
So I guess you could say Palin paid him a complement.
* And unsolicited, obviously.
If only she could have been prevented, for Justice Prosser's sake.
By the way here's some prior, unfollowed* advice for Justice Prosser. Why Justice Prosser's campaign manager, Brian Nemoir, wasn't forcefully admonished and summarily dismissed remains a complete mystery to me, to this day, nearly four months after the fact. That wing-nut Waukesha County schtick doesn't play Statewide, ya know.
And it just might cost Justice Prosser (and WMC) the bench.
So I guess you could say Palin paid him a complement.
* And unsolicited, obviously.
Right-wing condescension in Wisconsin, Day Two
CAPITOL KAOS, Agent Rick reporting for Faux News duty
I finally had a chance to listen to Joy Cardin's March 30 interview with Marquette professors of law Ed Fallone and Rick Esenberg, discussing the events unfolding in Judge Maryann Sumi's courtroom in Madison. The link is here, and it's about 35 minutes. Prof. Fallone has got it together, and you'll hear little more from him than you've already read on this here blog over the past week, starting last Friday.
Esenberg, on the other hand, is priceless, so desperately does he want it to be 1943, when the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled that a dicey procedure* in a political branch might not be enjoined.
But much has changed since then, most importantly the enactment of the Open Meetings Law, which set in place a number of directives to the courts that make Prof. Esenberg's 1943 case considerably less significant than he makes it out to be. But Prof. Esenberg is having none of it, and literally sneers at anyone who thinks differently.
But first, Esenberg has apparently forgotten about the chicanery perpetrated by the Republican Senate leader Scott Fitzgerald, who Esenberg helped advise that a six-months-pregnant woman might be "carried ... feet first" over that legislative chamber's threshold:
And unfortunately for Prof. Rick, it isn't the only case.
Another thing that bothers Rick is that Dane County District Attorney Ismail Ozanne didn't sue the Legislative Reference Bureau along with the secretary of state. But if your objective is to enjoin publication, which is a legal term of art and is what is required by the constitution and the statutory framework, then why would you sue the Kinko's kiosk?** This concern catapults Prof. Esenberg into full sneer-mode:
But then, lo and behold, Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice N. Patrick Crooks, who has been a trial judge and an appellate judge for 30-plus years, appeared before a special committee of the legislature to point out that, yes, the complaint against Gableman is still pending because — just as this space had explained earlier — Gableman failed to win his motion for summary judgment, which is the question an appeals court panel had convened to hear in September of 2009.
So, yes, I had certainly consulted something other than a horn book: I consulted something called the law prior to making the claim, as did Justice Crooks prior to affirming it, as has, obviously, Judge Maryann Sumi. She's not conducting this hearing — and they call them hearings for a reason — for the special benefit of Marquette's Rick Esenberg.
Rick has a right to his argument — which is wrong, as it turns out — but he has no cause to sneer and especially no business sneering at a presiding trial judge simply because she hasn't acknowledged Prof. Rick's existence. The hubris, as they say, is strong with this one.
But the truly depressing thing is, the local nut-right simply accepts Prof. Esenberg's words as Gospel, and his sentiment find its way into the appalling personal attacks against Judge Sumi among the basest dregs of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel's comments threads.
Meanwhile what Judge Maryann Sumi is doing is an exemplary job and she's clearly — crystal clearly — been doing her homework.
* There is procedure and there is substance, a fundamental distinction in all law, and a very important distinction in this case. It's why the Justices of the SCOTUS were moved to devise the intuitively redundant expression, "procedural due process."
** No disrespect to the LRB, but it's the best metaphor I can think of to describe a core question of the case. Amusingly, Esenberg accuses the LRB of injecting politics into the proceeding when in fact the LRB is the least political party, named or unnamed, to the proceeding.
I finally had a chance to listen to Joy Cardin's March 30 interview with Marquette professors of law Ed Fallone and Rick Esenberg, discussing the events unfolding in Judge Maryann Sumi's courtroom in Madison. The link is here, and it's about 35 minutes. Prof. Fallone has got it together, and you'll hear little more from him than you've already read on this here blog over the past week, starting last Friday.
Esenberg, on the other hand, is priceless, so desperately does he want it to be 1943, when the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled that a dicey procedure* in a political branch might not be enjoined.
But much has changed since then, most importantly the enactment of the Open Meetings Law, which set in place a number of directives to the courts that make Prof. Esenberg's 1943 case considerably less significant than he makes it out to be. But Prof. Esenberg is having none of it, and literally sneers at anyone who thinks differently.
But first, Esenberg has apparently forgotten about the chicanery perpetrated by the Republican Senate leader Scott Fitzgerald, who Esenberg helped advise that a six-months-pregnant woman might be "carried ... feet first" over that legislative chamber's threshold:
The mess that we find ourselves in now is because, I believe, that the circuit court failed to give adequate attention to whether or not this was a morass into which she should have plunged in the first place.It's laugh-out-loud stuff, and the gist of Esenberg's complaint is that Judge Sumi hasn't explained to Esenberg every step of her reasoning up to this point: Rick is "extremely disappointed" that Judge Sumi hasn't acknowledged Rick's concerns, which is absolute nonsense because the one case upon which Rick hangs his hat is referenced throughout documents filed with the court, including, significantly, the District IV Court of Appeals certification of Ozanne v. Fitz to the Supreme Court. Rick suggests Sumi is simply ignoring it. Poor guy.
And unfortunately for Prof. Rick, it isn't the only case.
Another thing that bothers Rick is that Dane County District Attorney Ismail Ozanne didn't sue the Legislative Reference Bureau along with the secretary of state. But if your objective is to enjoin publication, which is a legal term of art and is what is required by the constitution and the statutory framework, then why would you sue the Kinko's kiosk?** This concern catapults Prof. Esenberg into full sneer-mode:
The one thing I think should have happened here is that a lawyer who read the law, and I'm talking about the statutes and, y'know, not a publication that is sent to schoolchildren to explain to gradeschoolers how, y'know, a law goes into effect, but actually read the law ...And if you think "sneering" is an exaggeration, go to 32:45 of the interview. Evidently invoking "schoolchildren" is a rhetorical specialty of Rick's, because he pulled the same stunt on me when I pointed out that Michael Gableman's ethics case was still pending after the Supreme Court delivered its opinions — or "writings," as they have become known — in the matter. Rick told me I needed to consult something other than "horn book" civil procedure, which is like accusing someone of only having read the CliffsNotes version of The Brothers Karamazov or, as Rick would put it: "[G]o read Sartre."
But then, lo and behold, Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice N. Patrick Crooks, who has been a trial judge and an appellate judge for 30-plus years, appeared before a special committee of the legislature to point out that, yes, the complaint against Gableman is still pending because — just as this space had explained earlier — Gableman failed to win his motion for summary judgment, which is the question an appeals court panel had convened to hear in September of 2009.
So, yes, I had certainly consulted something other than a horn book: I consulted something called the law prior to making the claim, as did Justice Crooks prior to affirming it, as has, obviously, Judge Maryann Sumi. She's not conducting this hearing — and they call them hearings for a reason — for the special benefit of Marquette's Rick Esenberg.
Rick has a right to his argument — which is wrong, as it turns out — but he has no cause to sneer and especially no business sneering at a presiding trial judge simply because she hasn't acknowledged Prof. Rick's existence. The hubris, as they say, is strong with this one.
But the truly depressing thing is, the local nut-right simply accepts Prof. Esenberg's words as Gospel, and his sentiment find its way into the appalling personal attacks against Judge Sumi among the basest dregs of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel's comments threads.
Meanwhile what Judge Maryann Sumi is doing is an exemplary job and she's clearly — crystal clearly — been doing her homework.
* There is procedure and there is substance, a fundamental distinction in all law, and a very important distinction in this case. It's why the Justices of the SCOTUS were moved to devise the intuitively redundant expression, "procedural due process."
** No disrespect to the LRB, but it's the best metaphor I can think of to describe a core question of the case. Amusingly, Esenberg accuses the LRB of injecting politics into the proceeding when in fact the LRB is the least political party, named or unnamed, to the proceeding.
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