That is a slight oversimplification of the court’sactionbut very slight.
Consider this: Four of the seven justices approved arule allowing them to accept millions in campaign contributions from specialinterests without being required to remove themselves from cases before thecourt involving those contributors.
Even more shameless, the rule the justices approvedwas actually written by two of the richest business lobbies in the state thatmake enormous contributions to Supreme Court races: Wisconsin Manufacturers& Commerce (WMC) and the Wisconsin Realtors Association.
The business groups wanted assurance that theSupreme Court justices they buy stay bought. It doesn’t do any good to buySupreme Court races if the justices you put on the court have to recusethemselves from your cases just because they have blatant conflicts ofinterest.
It should come as no surprise to anyone that the twojustices on the court who have been charged with corruption voted with themajority.
Justice Annette Ziegler was reprimanded by hercolleagues on the Supreme Court for failing to recuse herself from cases as acircuit judge involving a bank where her husband was on the board of directors,a bank that also had loaned her and her husband $3 million.
The other ethically challenged justice, Michael Gableman,is currently facing charges by the Wisconsin Judicial Commission of lying abouthis opponent, former Supreme Court Justice Louis Butler Jr., in ads thatfalsely accused Butlerof being involved in releasing a child molester who then assaulted anotherchild.
In addition to their own unethical histories,Ziegler and Gableman also received millions of dollars in campaigncontributions from the WMC, which wrote the rule allowing justices to receivemillions from the WMC and still rule on cases involving the WMC.
Within months of her election, Ziegler paid enormousdividends to the WMC by writing a majority decision granting $265 million intax refunds to state businesses in a case WMC had identified as one of itshighest priorities.
No one expects Ziegler and Gableman to suddenlystart acting ethically. But the two other justices who joined themJusticesDavid Prosser and Patience Roggensackshould be ashamed of themselves.
Because state Supreme Court justices serve 10-yearterms, voters embarrassed by the current corruption of the court won’t have anopportunity to shift control of the court from the unprincipledZiegler-Gableman majority until 2011, when Prosser’s term expires.
Buying Justice?
The state’s ethics code for judges previously statedthat judges had to recuse themselves from cases if their impartiality couldreasonably be questioned. The rule approved by the four justices last weekinserts a contradictory amendment declaring that campaign contributionsaloneno matter how enormousaren’t enough to require a judge or justice tostep aside.
The majority rejected a rule proposed by formerSupreme Court Justice William Bablitch and the League of Women Voters thatwould have defined conflicts of interest resulting from campaign contributions.The rule would have required judges to recuse themselves if they received morethan a certain dollar amount from one of the parties involved in a case.
By refusing to set any limits at all on the amountof money they can take from those who have cases before them, the courtmajority openly defied a decision earlier this year by the U.S. Supreme Court.In a 5-4 decision last June, the U.S. Supreme Court said judges must recusethemselves from participating in cases where one of the parties involved has spenthuge amounts of money to get those judges elected.
Writing for the majority, Justice Anthony Kennedysaid the decision resulted from “extraordinary” circumstances in a West Virginia case wherea corporate business owner spent $3 million to elect a court of appeals judgewho then reversed a $50 million judgment against the businessman’s company.
Anyone familiar with the campaign contributions toelect Ziegler and Gableman to the Wisconsincourt knows those circumstances aren’t particularly “extraordinary.” In Wisconsin, that’sbusiness as usual.
Gableman snidely claimed the new rule simplyrejected “this almost implicit assumption that I hear … that somehow candidateswould somehow be tempted to make improper decisions based on something as lowas $1,000.”
Gableman’s argument recalls the old joke about a guyapproaching a woman on the street and asking if she’ll have sex with him for amillion dollars.
The woman says she’ll have to think about it. So theguy says, “Well, then, how about five bucks?” The woman is highly insulted andexclaims, “What do you think I am?” He replies: “We both know what you are.We’re just quibbling about the price.”
