Untipping The Scales Of Justice

In the last three elections for a seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court, the corporate special interests have been dumping increasing amounts of money either directly into the campaign or through third party activities, whether they be ads or the insidious propaganda groups.

And the last three candidates that they sponsored to the bench have been real treats.  Annette Ziegler was the first Supreme Court Justice in state history to be reprimanded for her unethical behaviors.  Michael Gableman broke judicial ethics when he ran the racist and utterly false ads against Louis Butler.  And David Prosser is so unstable that he actually physically attacked fellow Justice Ann Walsh Bradley.


The current race for Supreme Court Justice, which will be decided on Tuesday, is no different.  The incumbent, Patience Roggensack, has the backing of a lot of out of state school profiteers, support that she tried to hide from the public.  She has also been the beneficiary of hundreds of thousands of dollars in ad time paid for by the Wisconsin Club for Growth, a front group financed by the likes of the Koch brothers.

It's also a commonly known fact that these special interest groups are not doing this because they think she is a good judge.  If anything, the exact opposite is true.  They are sponsoring her campaign because they know her to be a dishonest judge.  They know that she will rule in their favor in any case that comes before her.  And thanks to her pushing the Roggensack Rule, bribery of a Supreme Court Justice is now legal, making it easier to ensure that they get someone who will decide in their favor, regardless of what the law says.

We've already seen this in action when Roggensack joined the corporate bloc in ruling against the stay on Act 10, without even reading the facts of the case.

This really came clear when Charlie Sykes had Roggensack on his show Friday morning.  In her interview, Roggensack said that she would uphold the law passed by the legislation and did not seem to concerned whether they were even constitutional.

Sykes brought it home even more when he went on a tirade saying that a Fallone victory would mean that things like Act 10, the mining bill, voter suppression and the other acts of malfeasance would be negated.

What this means is that they know that these laws are unconstitutional and won't stand up when looked at with an impartial eye.  Hence the corporate special interests' intense desire to make sure the corrupt Roggensack retains her seat.

I brought this up with Ed Fallone when I had dinner with him on Friday.  I pointed as I had written before, it's a foolish though to think he would rule the way I'd want him to on all of the cases.  He agreed with this assessment, saying that there would be times where I will take to the blog and roundly criticize him for some of his rulings.

But he also pointed out that as he has campaigned around the state, this is the one consistent thing people have said to him.  He said that regardless of who he was talking to, it came down to the same thing - win or lose, they just want to know that they had a fair hearing.

Fallone's statements are backed up by a poll showing that two thirds of the state feel that the Supreme Court has become too political.

Correcting this issue is one of the things Fallone has been promising.  He wants to take the special interest money out of the Supreme Court so that the decisions are based on the law, not on who donated the most to their campaign funds.

And now you can see why the corporate special interests are spending so much money.  Without Roggensack, they will no longer be able to tip the scales of justice so heavily in their favor.

As important as the Supreme Court race is, Milwaukee voters also need to be paying close attention to the race for Circuit Court Branch 45, which has a similar feel as the higher court race.

In the local race, instead of Roggensack, the corporate special interests are throwing their weight, and a lot of their money, behind Rebecca Bradley.

One might think that they are doing this because Bradley has been a strong supporter of the causes they love, such as voter suppression and supporting laws based on political ideology.  And one would be correct for thinking this - for the most part.

But think about this for a minute or three.

A number of the justices on the Supreme Court are, well, getting on in years.  What if one of the members decided to retire or passed away?  Scott Walker would appoint someone to fill that seat for the rest of the term.  It would not take a great leap of faith to think that Bradley was being groomed for this possible eventuality. And it sure would raise a lot fewer eyebrows if he appointed a sitting judge than a lawyer from a private firm with only a few months of experience on the bench.

No wonder the special interests are dumping hundreds of thousands of dollars on

this local race.

With Bradley on the Circuit Court bench, she will be ready to make sure that the scales of justice remain tipped in their favor in case something ill should befall one of the current justices.

By electing Janet Protasiewicz, we would not only be getting a judge who is fair and follows the law, but we would also help keep the Supreme Court from becoming again tipped towards the corporations whose only interest is increasing their profit margins.

So, in summary, by electing Ed Fallone and Janet Protasiewicz, we won't be tipping the scales in our favor.  Neither one of the would ever promise such a thing.  But by electing these two outstanding candidates, we can feel more confident that the scales of justice are more balanced and will remain that way.

Solidarity Fish Fry, Week 25: The Scales of Justice

As advertised, this was Week 25 of the Solidarity Fish Fry.  And, oh, what a week it was.

When we arrived at Serb Hall, the first thing that I noticed was that the crowd was

nowhere near the size of what it used to be.  Serb Hall used to be the go to place, especially on Good Friday.  The TV stations would always send a camera crew out to take pictures of the crowd and interview the manager who would talk about how many tons of fish, how many gallons of tartar sauce, how many tons of fries they would go through in just one day.

But those days are long gone.

I surmised that it was probably the effect of two things.

One is the fact that years ago, Serb Hall started going through a series of changes at the management level, which in turn had a rather negative effect on the quality of the food and the services.  They have never been able to draw back the crowds they used to have.

The other reason is that people simply don't have the expendable money they used to have to go out to eat, see a movie or do other sorts of things, thanks to Scott Walker's maleficent agenda which has sent the state's economy down the tubes.  Without that little bit of extra cash, there's not many places that have door-busting crowds anymore.

Despite the smaller crowd, it was still a glorious evening.

First of all, I was able to join my stalwart and good-humored co-host of the event, Randy Bryce, for dinner.

But the highlight of the event for me was the fact that we had the privilege and honor of being joined by Ed Fallone,  candidate for Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice, and his son Andrew:

Ed had a rare moment away from the campaign trail and was spending some quality time with his son.  Part of their itinerary included joining us for dinner before going out to catch a movie.

It was a pleasure to see Ed again and listen to his stories from both the campaign trail and from his teachings.  While the conversation mostly stayed light, I was again impressed by his gravitas and his intellectualism.  But even though he has these qualities, he was, as Randy put it, "genuine."  There were no pretensions, no arrogance and no snobbery.  He exuded a calm confidence without any airs of superiority or condescension.

And even though his dinner was being repeatedly interrupted by well-wishers and admirers, he treated each person with the same grace and civility that he would bring to the Supreme Court, qualities which are sorely missing from it right now.  He even was gracious enough to have his picture taken with us:

I must also say that his son, Andrew, was also most impressive.  The young man obviously has his father's intelligence and interest in the world around him, but was nothing but polite and charming throughout the evening.

Also at Serb Hall on this spring evening was Janet Protasiewicz, who is running for Milwaukee County Circuit Court Branch 45.

Janet was following the time-honored tradition of going to Serb Hall to meet with the people and introduce herself.  She told me that outside of one or two tables, everyone was very gracious to her and were willing to listen to her and share their thoughts and concerns with her.

I took note that she had befriended an older gentleman named Eugene.  Even though Eugene was from Brookfield and could not vote for her, she took extra time to visit with this 91 year old man dining by himself and made a point of taking him to meet Ed.

I took note of this because to me, it was pure Janet.  She did not do this because it would have benefited her politically in any way (because it wouldn't), but because she is a genuinely compassionate person.   It is that compassion and attention to details that others would overlook that would make her a wonderful judge.

I also noticed that her opponent, Rebecca Bradley, was not to be seen.  Apparently, Bradley feels confident enough that the corporate special interests, like Wisconsin Club for Growth, are going to be able to buy the election for her that she didn't need to meet with the people she expects to vote for her.

No less important, I was also able to see and briefly visit with Rick and Linda Rumpel of Watertown, who have been frequent supporters of the Solidarity Fish Fry.  They had a busy day of it themselves, having started out in Madison for the Solidarity Singalong before coming to Milwaukee to protest the unjust decision not to issue charges in relation to the death of Derek Williams.  They ended their day by joining us in solidarity with the union workers at Serb Hall.

Overall, it was a most pleasant evening.

It makes me look forward to next week, when we will be celebrating not only Ed's and Janet's victories, but also Week 26 - a full six months - of Solidarity Fish Fry.