The race for a seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court has taken center stage as a showdown between a Walker yes-man and a challenger who would stand up to the overreaching governor. Long overshadowed by the budget bill pandemonium, this race heated up in a frantic final push by the candidates, grassroots organizers and a whopping $2.16 million spent on advertising. The Kloppenburg-Prosser race is yet another example of a judicial election that quickly became a free-for-all of party politics and spend-thrift political action committees. While the candidates remain aloof and repeat again and again that they are impartial, their campaign staff sets out to align them on one side of the aisle. This election shows once again that Supreme Court elections tend to be fiascoes.
The first problem is that judicial elections don’t accurately reflect the opinion of voters. They have a notoriously low turnout, and most people are not familiar with the subtleties of the legal system. Being a judge is not like serving prolonged jury duty. There are precedents, procedures and a whole lot of jargon, some of it in Latin. In the media, Supreme Court elections like this one tend to be dominated by the voices of powerful lobbies and PACs. These partisan groups spend millions of dollars on television advertisements and do their utmost to label candidates and align them with either the right or the left. It is difficult for voters to choose based on qualifications, and the political picture of candidates is determined by wealthy political and business interests. The result is a race charged with all of the partisan bickering that plagues every other election.
This isn’t just annoying, it’s a problem, because the Supreme Court is supposed to be neutral. An impartial Supreme Court is important because the legal system relies on precedents for certainty, and each decision carries weight not only in that specific instance but also in all similar cases in the future. When the court is composed of conservative and liberal justices, and bounces back and forth in political opinion from year to year, different verdicts on similar cases and double standards start to accumulate. Impartial justice maintains the foundation of our legal system.
Lately it has been painted as a position meant to check the governor, in the sense that we should “elect Kloppenburg to stop Walker,” because if there is a judge on the other end of the spectrum power will “balance out.” The Supreme Court is supposed to be a branch of government neither motivated nor influenced by politics. It is meant to check the governor when necessary, but to check him impartially. The question is how to get non-partisan judges out of politically charged elections, and the answer is that it’s impossible. It is like going to the Kollege Klub and asking for a glass of warm milk. The irony of Supreme Court elections is that it is almost unimaginable that a truly middle of the road, unopinionated candidate would draw the votes necessary to upset an incumbent justice.
The Kloppenburg-Prosser election is a mess we shouldn’t be dealing with in the first place, because Wisconsin should switch to the federal model for choosing Supreme Court justices. The unpopular truth is that democracy has no place when it comes to picking judges. It leaves us with a politically motivated court, and the millions of dollars big business and political interests pump into campaigns affects the way cases involving business and politics are handled. Justices are influenced by public opinion because they must keep voters happy to be reelected. Judges should be nominated by the governor and approved by the Senate. This concentrates power in the hands of a few, yes, but it keeps media and money out of the process and allows for a serious investigation into the judge’s legal background. Justices should be appointed for life, so they don’t need to cater to business or public opinion. Only then will they be insulated from political influence.
Prosser’s political background speaks for itself. He has a long and illustrious history with the GOP, and Sarah Palin endorsed him. Kloppenburg has little political history to speak of, but she volunteered with the Peace Corps and studied development at Princeton. The fact of the matter is that both of these candidates have obvious political leanings, and their opinions, not their qualifications, will decide this race. Either way, the Supreme Court will be another branch of government plagued by partisanship, and it’s not the fault of voters or even the candidates, but a problem with the system that needs to be addressed. Take your pick between red and blue, whichever floats your boat, but you shouldn’t have to.
Charles Godfrey ([email protected]) is a freshman with an undecided major.
