A debate for a spot on the Wisconsin Supreme Court should be a battle of which candidate is more non-partisan than the other — because that’s what justices are supposed to be. But in the past six judicial elections, this has not been the case. Money has been the deciding factor in all of those elections.
So far in 2016, there is a three-way race for the the judgeship involving Milwaukee County Judge Joe Donald, State Supreme Court Justice Rebecca Bradley and State Court of Appeals Judge JoAnne Kloppenburg.
Money indicates that Kloppenburg has the edge in the upcoming judicial election. She has raised $278,447 in 2015 compared to $250,657 by Donald and $229,870 by Bradley.
These numbers are slightly misleading. Donald and Kloppenburg have been raising money since July, while Bradley raising funds for her reelection October. Bradley has raised nearly the same amount of money as Donald and Kloppenburg in half the time.
The reason Bradley has been getting a high volume of donations is due to her actions. These decisions have left Donald “bamboozled.”
So why are her actions so hard to comprehend? It is because she has continually thrown the idea of unbiased court decisions out the window to vote as right-wing as she can. Maybe this is because Gov. Scott Walker is responsible for her whole career, having received three judgeship appointments from him in three years.
She and other right-leaning justices’ most partisan act came after the John Doe investigation into Walker’s campaign finance reforms. Right-leaning justices threw out this investigation, led by Republicans but containing a bipartisan panel, and not even considered for review.
Even more troubling is Bradley’s plan to attend the Reagan Day event on Feb. 19. The event description says, “Join fellow Republicans as we celebrate the birthday of our 40th President, Ronald Reagan.”
Her planned participation at this festival is perplexing, to say the least, considering — as per the judicial code of ethics —“a candidate for judicial office shall not appeal to partisanship and shall avoid partisan activity in the spirit of a nonpartisan judiciary.”
Reagan Day seems to be strictly partisan (it is for “fellow Republicans”), but Bradley — a nonpartisan, state Supreme Court justice — is making an appearance.
Similarly, as Wisconsin becomes more politically divided, judgeships are increasingly looked upon as a way to ensure that a governor’s radical agenda lives on. Smart Politics, a nonpartisan political news site, compiled data from Wisconsin’s 120 state Supreme Court elections and found that in the 94 races where incumbent justices were up for reelection, the incumbents only lost in those races five times.
To be honest, Bradley might be representing the new wave of how Wisconsin elects judges.
PACs, especially, want to forward their ideals in all areas of government. Since Bradley is flamboyantly displaying her political leanings and loyalty to the conservative Walker and conservative PACs, like Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce (the largest donor to right-leaning judges), they will have no qualms about endorsing her.
The same goes for left-leaning judges. The Greater Wisconsin Committee, Wisconsin’s Manufacturers and Commerce counterpart on the left, supplied $1.6 million of the $1.61 million used to Kloppenburg in her 2011 state Supreme Court campaign.
How Bradley is carrying herself in this campaign calls for legislative action. Rep. Gary Hebl, D-Sun Prairie initiated that action. He has introduced a bill that would force judges to recuse themselves from cases involving donors that gave, either directly or indirectly, $1,000 or more within the last four years.
While this is a good first step, ultimately, the goal should be to remove funding from judicial campaigns altogether. I guarantee the state Supreme Court judges know who gave them quite a bit of money. They know the same tactics these people or groups used them to get elected can be turned on them. Slanderous accusations can be made, damning the career of a judge. Maybe it’s not a thought in the forefront of a justice’s mind, but it’s there.
There’s evidence for this hypothesis. A 2014 study called “Skewed Justice” concluded that justices are less likely to rule in favor of criminal defendants if this ruling will lead to attack ads in the future.
As this judicial election drags on, money will become increasingly important. To get money, these candidates will appear more partisan to obtain more funds than their opponents, thus assuring their place on the bench.
Aaron Reilly ([email protected]) is a freshman majoring in comparative literature and Russian.
