Photo courtesy Janet for Justice
Janet Protasiewicz
Janet Protasiewicz
Yesterday, lawyers in Madison filed with the Wisconsin Supreme Court an emergency petition to protect Justice Janet Protasiewicz from an unconstitutional impeachment by the state assembly.
Protasiewicz won an outsized victory in the April election, shifting the balance of supreme court power from a conservative to a progressive majority. Since Protasiewicz’s election, Speaker Vos and members of the Wisconsin state assembly have stated their intentions to invoke constitutional powers to impeach. An impeachment would effectively short circuit the new progressive majority. If the assembly passes articles of impeachment even by a simple majority, Protasiewicz would be prevented from presiding over cases.
Lawyers Tim Burns of Burns Bair and Dixon Gahnz and Andrew Hysell of LawtonCates filed the petition on behalf of two voters who voted for Protasiewicz arguing that their clients’ constitutionally protected right to vote would be “destroyed” by an unconstitutional impeachment.
“The impeachment of Justice Protasiewicz would disenfranchise over a million Wisconsin voters and shatter the independence of Wisconsin’s court system,” said Andrew Hysell.
During her campaign, Protasiewicz made statements about her views on issues important to Wisconsin voters like abortion, crime and the state’s legislative maps. She also received contributions from supporters, including from the Wisconsin Democratic Party. Candidates for the state supreme court have routinely done both. Her opponent Dan Kelly received almost one third of his total contributions from the Republican Party and shared his views on a wide range of issues from guns to abortion.
“Instead of being an impeachable offense, this is the normal function of a campaign,” said Hysell. “If we require the voters to select judges, they need information to do so. Former conservative Justice Antonin Scalia clearly said the opposite of what the assembly is suggesting that “’state-imposed voter ignorance” is constitutionally impermissible.’”
Under the state constitution, the Wisconsin state assembly can bring articles of impeachment against a justice. If the assembly votes for those articles, then the justice is forced to recuse him or herself from future cases even if the state senate does not convict.
In their petition, the lawyers requested the court issue an order that would require the Supreme Court to rule in the majority on the constitutionality of any proposed impeachment prior to its introduction. The court could rule on the petition at any time.
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