Rebecca Dallet
The next election striking terror into the hearts of Republicans could take place in a matter of days in a Wisconsin voting booth near you. A clear pattern is emerging in local elections throughout the country of voters fleeing the Republican Party. Good people are eager for opportunities to stand up to everything President Donald Trump and his enablers are doing to the country.
Voters did that last week in a corruptly gerrymandered Republican congressional district in Pennsylvania by electing Democrat Conor Lamb. Lamb’s victory not only came in a district Trump won by 20 points little more than a year earlier, but one that was dishonestly designed to prevent a Democrat from ever winning an election there. Lamb and other state congressmen will run in more fairly drawn districts by the state supreme court in November, and Democrats are expected to pick up even more seats.
But what do the series of Democratic victories in Virginia, New Jersey, Alabama, Pennsylvania and a growing string of special legislative elections—including one in northern Wisconsin—have to do with the Wisconsin Supreme Court election on Tuesday, April 3, between Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Rebecca Dallet and Sauk County Circuit Judge Michael Screnock? Aren’t court elections in Wisconsin non-partisan?
Yeah, right. Everyone pretends those races are non-partisan even though everyone knows they aren’t. The same big-money Republican funders pouring millions of dollars into the campaigns of right-wing candidates in partisan state and national races do exactly the same for ultraconservative Wisconsin supreme court candidates. Progressive political groups contribute to more moderate and progressive candidates.
Writing the Rules with Corrupt Campaign Money
This has taken a particularly ugly turn in recent years as the Republican Party has become more blatantly dishonest and extreme. Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce (WMC), the state’s richest business lobby, spent more than $10 million over the past decade buying itself a corrupt, five-to-two, right-wing majority on the Wisconsin Supreme Court. The word “corrupt” isn’t used lightly. The WMC actually wrote a so-called “ethics rule” for the court in 2010 that, in reality, is that court’s “no-ethics rule.” The rule states justices aren’t required to recuse themselves from a case simply because one of the parties before them has contributed millions of dollars to their election. The WMC isn’t about to lose the votes of the justices they’ve bought and paid for.
|
|
Rebecca Dallet’s qualifications include more than two decades of experience as a prosecutor and judge. Gov. Scott Walker appointed Screnock a judge in 2015 after he worked for a Republican law firm that drew corruptly gerrymandered Wisconsin voting districts (thrown out by a federal court as unconstitutional) and defended Walker’s law destroying union bargaining rights. In the age of mass shootings, Screnock also enjoys the dubious support of the National Rifle Association (NRA) as a loyal champion of “firearms freedom.”
Then there’s Screnock’s arrest record as a student activist at UW-Madison. No, Screnock didn’t participate in civil rights or anti-war demonstrations as we’d expect idealistic 19-year-olds to do. His arrests were more questionable for a potential justice. Screnock was convicted twice at boisterous demonstrations attempting to block women from entering a Madison abortion clinic, exercising their constitutionally protected rights. Screnock says he has no regrets about illegally defying the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision and sees no need to recuse himself from abortion rights cases.
Screnock is the sort of scurrilous candidate extreme right-wing organizations have succeeded in packing onto the Wisconsin Supreme Court in low-turnout spring elections featuring candidates who are not widely known. Why wouldn’t they succeed again? That’s what makes the April 3 election such an important test for Wisconsin.
A New Wave of Hope
This is 2018. Obviously, something different is going on this year in election after election. In 2016, folks who thought they knew how decent America was were utterly shocked when an ignorant, openly racist demagogue won the presidency. According to the bestselling Fire and Fury, Trump and his family were just as shocked. Their real motivation for running was what they envisioned the national publicity would do to boost their personal fortunes.
In election after election this year building toward the November midterms, voting patterns have completely reversed from those of 2016. Those most energized to vote are Democrats, independents and moderate Republicans appalled by the steady stream of lies and hatred emanating from the White House and supported by complicit Republican leaders who surely know better.
April 3 is when Wisconsin can overcome the odds in an off-year, low-turnout spring election to reclaim the political integrity it destroyed in 2016 by narrowly helping elect an unfit, nationally embarrassing president. Voters in ruby red Alabama and a gerrymandered Pennsylvania district overcame much longer odds.
Wisconsin voters can begin restoring integrity to one of the most corrupt state courts in the nation by electing Rebecca Dallet—the only qualified candidate—and serving notice they’re coming for any Republicans in November who fail to stand up against Trump’s brazen corruption of democracy.
