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Every time state media refers to Michael Gableman as “a former Supreme Court justice” appointed by Republicans to investigate President Trump’s election defeat in Wisconsin, it seems to imply there could be legitimate legal questions about November’s election. Nothing could be further from the truth.
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Michael Gableman
Electing a judge doesn’t confer legal integrity on anyone and Gableman’s 2008 election to the Wisconsin Supreme Court conferred even less. Gableman’s vicious, racist campaign to defeat Justice Louis Butler, the only African American to serve on the high court, was based on a brazen lie. Gableman’s entire 10-year term on the court was one of the sleaziest and most unethical in state history.
Because no one remembers political history beyond last week, we should describe the racist TV ad Gableman employed to defeat Butler, an outstanding justice with 11 years’ experience as a state public defender, 12 more as Milwaukee Circuit Judge and four on the Supreme Court completing an unexpired term.
Shock Ads
It was a TV attack ad intentionally designed to shock. Gableman ran two photographs of African Americans side by side. One was Justice Butler smiling widely. The other was the mug shot of a convicted black rapist. A voice-over alluded to Butler’s work as a public defender: “Louis Butler worked to put criminals on the street. Like Reuben Mitchell, who raped an 11-year-old girl with learning disabilities. Butler found a loophole. Mitchell went on to molest another child.”
The other important thing to know about that ad is it’s totally false. As a public defender, Butler did raise questions about the original trial that won an appeal for Mitchell. But that appeal never released Mitchell from prison. He served his entire sentence of 11 years. Years later after being released on parole, Mitchell committed another crime.
Seven months after Gableman’s lies had done their dirty work with Gableman narrowly defeating Butler 51% to 49%, the Wisconsin Judicial Commission charged Gableman with violating judicial ethics for falsely suggesting Butler’s legal work had freed a rapist to commit another crime. “By publishing the advertisement in willful violation of (the state’s judicial ethics code) Judge Gableman engaged in judicial misconduct,” the commission wrote.
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Turning Point
Gableman’s victory was an historic turning point for the Wisconsin Supreme Court. For 12 years until Gableman’s election, Wisconsin had a progressive Supreme Court under its nationally respected Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson who died last January. Abrahamson was on the short list for President Bill Clinton’s 1993 Supreme Court nomination that went to her friend Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
Gableman radically changed the court’s ideology and legal ethics. For two years Gableman fought the charges against him with free legal services provided by Michael Best & Friedrich, one of the state’s most expensive Republican law firms.
Gableman ultimately escaped punishment without ever being exonerated. The Supreme Court itself makes the final decision on disciplining members for judicial misconduct. Gabelman’s rightwing Republican colleagues had no intention of disciplining his misconduct giving them majority control of the court. The vote on disciplining Gableman deadlocked 3-3.
By that time, the new rightwing majority was already operating under a brand-new code of ethics introduced by, brace yourself, Gableman. More accurately described as an ethics-free code of ethics, it declared justices didn’t have to recuse themselves from cases involving parties who had contributed millions of dollars to elect them to the court.
Lobbyists Write the Rules
It gets worse. That rule was written for Gableman by lobbyists for Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce (WMC) and the Wisconsin Realtors Association. Those groups had spent more than $10 million to elect all four members of the new rightwing majority including $2.3 million to elect Gableman, 63% of all his contributions. Gabelman used the rule to repay Michael Best & Friedrich many times over for all their free legal services by refusing to recuse himself from cases involving their high-paying clients.
The rule came in handy again in 2015 when the court shut down a bipartisan criminal John Doe investigation by three district attorneys into suspected money laundering by Republican Gov. Scott Walker disguising the source of funds raised to fight the 2011 recall elections of Walker and nine Republican legislators.
That case involved Walker raising anonymous “dark money” through the Koch-funded Wisconsin Club for Growth and again the WMC. Gableman wrote the decision declaring it wasn’t illegal in Wisconsin for candidates to solicit unlimited anonymous contributions through “independent” political organizations to hide the identity of donors and violate fundraising limits. Gableman’s court essentially legalized anonymously bribing public officials.
Now Republicans are spending $720,000 of your tax dollars to pay Gableman $44,000 and providing him with a budget of $676,000 for a four-month “investigation” to discredit President Biden’s election victory in Wisconsin.
So far, Gableman has consulted loony MyPillow conspiracy theorist Mike Lindell and the Arizona Cyber Ninjas whose destructive “audit” compromised millions of dollars’ worth of state voting machines.
What could possibly go wrong?
Joel McNally was a critic and columnist for the Milwaukee Journal for 27 years. He has written the weekly Taking Liberties column for the Shepherd Express since 1996.
