In Milwaukee County, there is a number of judicial elections coming up on Tuesday, but only one of those races - the one for Branch 32 - is a contested race, meaning that there is more than one candidate. The two people running for that seat are Laura Gramling Perez and Cedric Cornwall.
Gramling Perez has been working her campaign for months, appearing at numerous events and getting her name out. She has gotten the support of many judges, court commissioners, lawyers, elected officials and labor unions. She is very personable and professional and has some great ideas to improve the judicial system and make it more friendly to the people that find themselves in the system. In the interest of full disclosure,
I endorsed Gramling Perez at the beginning of the year.
Cornwall's campaign has been quieter. He has not been as visible and has not been out and about nearly as much as his opponent. He has also gain the support of many judges, court commissioners and lawyers, but many of them appear to be people that work at the Children's Court Center where he works in his current position.
The race, until Friday, had been relatively quiet.
But on Friday, Cornwall's campaign started to implode with an increasingly rapid pace.
The implosion started when it was learned that his campaign had sent out these fliers to voters:
Cornwall went all McCarthy on his opponent. He cited a right wing front group, Wisconsin Election Launch, to give the impression that Gramling Perez couldn't be impartial because she exercised her constitutional right to sign a recall petition.
If Cornwall paid more attention to the law than right wing propaganda blogs, he would have learned that there is nothing wrong with Gramling Perez signing a recall petition, as constitutional law scholar Professor Edward Fallone of Marquette University
clearly points out.
But - say it with me - there's more. There's always more.
Cornwall's campaign has admitted that these mailers were supposed to go to only conservative voters. Progressive voters were supposed to get another mailer which cited a quote from Judge Carolina Stark.
In other words, he was trying to play both sides of the aisle with his misleading fliers.
These actions - the McCarthyism and the duplicity - started people to reconsider their endorsement of Cornwall. There have been at least three names reported to Cog Dis that have withdrawn their endorsements.
As these events were transpiring, yet another problem for Cornwall was discovered.
Cornwall has been claiming the support of people that never did endorse him. The most notable of these people is Robert Hansen, who not only did not support Cornwall, but has
been in full support and actively canvassing for Gramling Perez:
I just saw Cedric Cornwall's new mail piece attacking Laura Gramling Perez for signing the recall. I am fully behind Laura Gramling Perez in this election and encourage you to get out and vote for her for circuit court judge. I am sending Mr. Cornwall a message expressing my disappointment and am asking him to remove my name from his website, on which I found out I am listed as a supporter. To be clear I have been helping Laura since the beginning and intend to do all I can to see her elected to this position.
In summary, Cornwall, who claims to be concerned about impartiality, has been playing both sides of the political aisle through disingenuous and flagrantly false fliers and has been falsely claiming the support of people who have never supported him and were even actively working for his opponent.
Instead of falsely maligning his opponent about impartiality, it would have behooved Cornwall to remember that even more important qualities for a judge are ethical conduct and integrity, both of which Cornwall has shown himself to be severely lacking.
Once again, I urge Milwaukee County voters to support
Laura Gramling Perez, a strong, impartial and ethical judge.
Posts
