It’s the oldest campaign trick in the book: Smear your opponent by saying she’s a “liberal judge” who sides with criminals by “overturning” their convictions based on technicalities.
That’s what the right-wing dark money group Wisconsin Alliance for Reform (WAR) alleged in its false ad targeting Appeals Court Judge JoAnne Kloppenburg, who is running for a 10-year term on the Wisconsin Supreme Court against Interim Justice Rebecca Bradley in the April 5 election.
WAR’s ad was so outrageously wrong that after Kloppenburg asked TV stations to pull it for being false, WAR apparently revised it, taking out the allegation that Kloppenburg overturned the conviction in a case involving sexual assault of a minor.
WAR’s ad still distorts the facts in the case, but at least it doesn’t include the blatant lie that Kloppenburg overturned this specific conviction.
We don’t know much about WAR, because it’s an independent “issue” group that doesn’t have to disclose its donors, from whom WAR can accept unlimited amounts of money. WAR didn’t respond to the Shepherd’s request for comment for this article.
We do know that WAR is run by Luke Fuller, who used to work for state Sen. Leah Vukmir (R-Wauwatosa), and Chris Martin, the former spokesman for the state Republican Party.
Wisconsin Democracy Campaign found that WAR has dumped about $1 million on this false attack ad, and has begun airing another one attacking Kloppenburg’s record on the Appeals Court. In addition, WAR has spent up to $1 million on ads supporting Interim Supreme Court Justice Rebecca Bradley, and is sponsoring ads attacking Democrat Russ Feingold, who’s running against Republican Ron Johnson for U.S. Senate in November.
WAR’s false ad blasted Kloppenburg for “overturning” the conviction of Daniel Fierro, who’d pleaded guilty to sexual assault when he says he thought he was pleading guilty to a different, lesser crime. The problem presented to the Appeals Court was whether Fierro knew he was pleading guilty to the wrong charge.
In March 2015, a three-judge Appellate Court panel unanimously concluded that Fierro should be given another hearing in which prosecutors need to prove that Fierro was aware of the mixup.
Kloppenburg was one of those three Appellate Court judges finding that Fierro should be granted another hearing. The judges did not overturn Fierro’s conviction, as WAR’s ad alleged. They didn’t exonerate him of any crime. He had his hearing and the state proved that he was aware of what he was pleading guilty to. Fierro is still in prison.
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