Photo: janetforjustice.com
Janet Protasiewicz
Janet Protasiewicz
It didn’t take most American voters long to realize what a disaster it was to elect a corrupt, rightwing, MAGA Republican president in 2016. They’ve turned out in record numbers in three straight elections since to repair all the destruction to our democracy.
But voters aren’t done yet. Wisconsin’s already speeding toward another statewide election that will be just as crucial in protecting their right to vote and make personal decisions about their own lives.
Most voters may not realize that yet. The April 4 election to the Wisconsin Supreme Court historically attracts fewer voters than any other election. The primary is a month away and many voters don’t even know who’s running.
That’s unfortunate because it’s the first chance they’ve had in 15 years to elect a majority to their highest court that’s not controlled by the far-right Federalist Society. The court now has three such justices—Ann Walsh Bradley, Rebecca Dallet and Jill Karofsky. It only needs one more to win a majority.
Destroying Constitutional Rights
That’s especially important now that a lopsided rightwing majority on the US Supreme Court is reviving the pre-Civil-War era of states’ rights. It’s destroying federal protections for Constitutional rights to allow states to write their own laws regarding racial and gender equality regarding abortion and voting rights.
So what’s the Federalist Society? It’s a rightwing legal organization that’s worked for decades to reverse what it considers “liberal” support for civil rights in law schools and the judiciary.
It achieved a primary goal when the rightwing Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade destroying a half century of federal protection for the Constitutional right of women to make their own decisions about their bodies and lives.
Leonard Leo, its former chair, screened Trump’s court nominees to assure their willingness to abolish women’s reproductive rights even though they all lied during their confirmations about respecting court precedents.
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Dark Election Money
Leo now controls $1.6 billion in dark money from a rightwing billionaire’s trust fund he intends to use to influence state supreme court races. That’s sure to include the Wisconsin race. Follow the money and vote against that candidate.
The Federalist Society has controlled the Wisconsin court, one of the most corrupt in the nation, ever since 2008 when the sleazy Michael Gableman was elected to a 10-year-term. Gableman defeated African American Justice Louis Butler with despicably racist TV ads falsely claiming Butler freed a Black child rapist as a public defender who then molested another child. It never happened.
The Wisconsin Judicial Commission charged Gableman with violating judicial ethics for that brazen lie. But Gableman’s election created a rightwing court majority and his corrupt colleagues refused to discipline him.
After Gableman’s continuously dishonest court career, Republican legislators hired him to fabricate phony reasons to throw out President Biden’s state election victory. His fraudulent investigation produced no evidence of election fraud, but he recommended overthrowing democracy anyway. Gableman’s political dishonesty cost state taxpayers more than a million dollars and still counting.
Before discussing the candidates in the Feb. 21 court primary, we should talk about the court’s most unexpected swing voter. Justice Brian Hagedorn deserves everyone’s respect for breaking with his partisan Republican court colleagues to support voting rights and election results in Wisconsin. No one would have predicted that.
Hagedorn is the former chief legal counsel to Gov. Scott Walker, but he’s legally outraged by the continuing unAmerican attempt by his own party to overthrow democracy. He joined the three justices supporting the Constitution to write 4-3 decisions rejecting Trumped-up Republican lawsuits attempting to overturn Biden’s election. He said throwing out all 3.3 million votes cast in Wisconsin to allow the Republican legislature to declare Trump the winner would be an incalculable abuse of judicial power. Yet that’s exactly what the remainder of the court wanted to do.
But that doesn’t make Hagedorn a consistent supporter of Constitutional rights when the most important issues before the court will include enforcing an 1849 law outlawing nearly every abortion and dishonestly gerrymandered voting districts that make it nearly impossible to dislodge two-thirds Republican majorities in the Legislature. Hagedorn, proudly calling himself a card-carrying member of the Federalist Society, was elected in 2019 as a rightwing religious opponent of Roe v. Wade and equal rights for LGBTQ Americans.
Election to the court is supposed to be nonpartisan, but everyone knows the party identification of the candidates. Judges Janet Protasiewicz and Everett Mitchell are Democrats and Judges Jennifer Dorow and former Justice Daniel Kelly are Republicans.
Be sure to vote on April 4.
Photo: judgeeverettmitchell.com
Everett Mitchell
Everett Mitchell
